Cultural Restitution
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VATICAN CITY
Updated April 2025
Below is a schedule of restitutions made to or from Vatican City.
Entries are updated regularly.
April 2025
Pope Francis remembered for supporting the return of stolen artefacts, including three fragments from the Parthenon, but also for his failure to return artefacts to Indigenous groups in Canada
May 2023
Pope Francis confirms talks are underway to return colonial-era artefacts in the Vatican Museum's collection to Indigenous peoples in Canada, as well as other objects on a 'case by case' basis
April 2023
Responding to decades of Indigenous demands, the Vatican has formally repudiated the "Doctrine of Discovery" that legitimised the colonial-era seizure of Native lands
March 2023
In a special Vatican ceremony, the restitution of three stone fragments from the Parthenon was signed off prior to their transfer to Athens on 24 March 2023
December 2022
Pope Francis has ordered the Vatican Museums to return three sculptural fragments removed from the Parthenon in the form of a 'donation' to Greece
March 2022
Curator of the Ethnological Museum in the Vatican tells leader of an Inuit delegation that the Vatican is open to returning precious cultural items to Canada
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