The Vatican has returned 62 indigenous artefacts to Canada, 100 years after they were taken from tribes to appear in a missionary museum in Rome.
The items were given by Pope Leo XIV on Saturday to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), which says it plans to return them to their original native communities.
The move comes three years after Pope Francis issued a historic apology to Canada's First Nations for the church's role in the "genocide" and suppression of indigenous identity through the residential schools programme.
A joint statement from the Vatican and the CCCB says the Pope "desires that this gift represent a concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity".
The statement adds that the artefacts "bear witness to the history of the encounter between faith and the cultures of the indigenous peoples".
