Montreal, Canada, Dec 8, 2025 / 14:48 pm (CNA).

Vancouver Archbishop Richard Smith said the 62 Indigenous cultural items received from the Vatican marks “a gift freely given” and an important step in rebuilding trust between the Catholic Church and Indigenous peoples.

A deeply prayerful celebration greeted their arrival at Montreal’s Trudeau Airport in Dorval on Dec. 6, even after a delay in transit from Frankfurt. The aged and sometimes fragile artifacts reportedly required additional handling before release, but the holdup did nothing to dampen spirits. What was billed as a media conference unfolded instead as a 90-minute welcome home filled with ceremony, gratitude, and emotional relief at the long-awaited arrival.

The artifacts, including a rare century-old Western Arctic kayak, were formally transferred to Indigenous leaders in Montreal as part of the Jubilee of Hope declared by Pope Francis. Before his death, the pope expressed his wish that the items be returned. Pope Leo XIV carried out that intention, gifting them from the Vatican Museums’ Anima Mundi collection to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) for immediate return.

“This gesture is a gift freely given — an act of reconciliation rooted in the grace of the Jubilee Year of Hope,” said Smith, a member of the Canadian Catholic Indigenous Council and one of the CCCB’s key representatives during the repatriation process. “A gift, unlike restitution, is offered in freedom and friendship, as a sign of renewed relationship and mutual respect between the Church and Indigenous peoples.”

Leaders from the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC), and the Métis National Council traveled to Montreal to receive the items. Local First Nations leadership held a ceremony to welcome the sacred items and bundles back to Canada.

For the Inuvialuit, the return of the rare kayak marks the culmination of a long-held hope.

“We are proud that after 100 years our kayak is returning to the Inuvialuit Settlement Region,” said Duane Ningaqsiq Smith, chair and CEO of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. “It is believed to be one of only five of its kind built more than a century ago… This is a historic step in revitalizing Inuvialuit cultural identity and values within our changing northern society.”

Indigenous leaders noted that Elders and Residential School Survivors have worked toward this moment for decades. A 2017 Assembly of First Nations resolution mandated efforts to secure the return of sacred items taken abroad, while the IRC has pressed specifically for the kayak’s repatriation.

“This step reflects the courage and persistence of the leaders, elders, and survivors who came before us,” said Victoria Pruden, president of the Métis National Council. “But this is not the end of the journey… Reconciliation is ongoing work, grounded in relationships, responsibility, and the continued pursuit of truth, justice, healing, and dignity for our peoples.”

National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak called the return “an important moment” for First Nations. “Our relatives are finally home,” she said. “For First Nations, these are not only artifacts. They are sacred, living items.”

Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, said Inuit are grateful to the institutions and partners who helped bring the items home. “We are at the very early stages of our reconciliation journey,” he said, “but we are pleased to see these cultural items return to us.”

According to the CCCB, the artifacts will be housed temporarily at the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa, where national Indigenous organizations will lead the work to establish the provenance of each item and determine its final destination.

The handover in Canada follows a November audience in Rome, where Pope Leo XIV formally entrusted the artifacts to Bishop Pierre Goudreault, president of the CCCB; Archbishop Smith; and Father Jean Vézina, the conference’s general secretary. The items — including an Inuit kayak, masks, moccasins, and etchings — had been held in the Vatican Museums for more than a century.

Smith said in an interview last month the transfer was “a milestone in the long journey of reconciliation and healing,” and especially meaningful as the Jubilee Year of Hope draws to a close. “This jubilee, like previous jubilees, wants to emphasize the importance of healing relationships,” he told America magazine.

A statement from the Holy See and the CCCB in November said the gift marks “the conclusion of the journey initiated by Pope Francis,” who met Indigenous delegations repeatedly before his 2022 “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada and later directed that the items be returned. Pope Leo “desires that this gift represent a concrete sign of dialogue, respect, and fraternity,” the statement said.

Smith said the bishops’ role “has really been a facilitating one, just working with the Holy See, working with the Indigenous leaders to make this happen.” He noted that the momentum “goes back to Pope Francis… it’s really something that grew out of his heart.”

Goudreault said Pope Leo’s decision to entrust the items to the bishops — rather than to a government or directly to an Indigenous body — was “a tangible sign of his desire to help Canada’s bishops walk alongside Indigenous peoples in a spirit of reconciliation during the Jubilee Year of Hope and beyond.”

The artifacts originated from First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities and were part of the ethnological exhibition organized for the Vatican Missionary Exhibition of 1925. Missionaries sent them to Rome between 1923 and 1925 for the display encouraged by Pope Pius XI, after which they were incorporated into the Vatican’s collection. Documentation certifying their origins and transport was transferred alongside the items.

Canadian ambassador to the Holy See Joyce Napier called the return “an important and a right step.” The Vatican has made similar gestures recently, including the return of three fragments of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece in 2023.

This story was first published by The B.C. Catholic, has been adapted by CNA, and is reprinted here with permission. It was updated Dec. 9 , 2025, with a photo of Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak and some additional information about the airport welcome of the artifacts.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 8, 2025 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

Bishop Michael Duca has granted a dispensation from Sunday Mass attendance for immigrants fearing deportation in the Diocese of Baton Rouge, the fourth U.S. diocese to do so.

News of the dispensation comes amid heightened presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Louisiana as part of the Trump administration’s “Swamp Sweep,” which has been reported to include the deployment of 250 Border Patrol agents to the region and plans to arrest 5,000 individuals across Louisiana and Misssissipi.

“With the recent publicized arrival of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers into south Louisiana and greater Baton Rouge, and since many of the faithful genuinely fear immigration enforcement actions, thereby making it untenable for them to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, I hereby grant a dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass for those Catholics rightfully afraid to participate in Mass because of their fear,” Duca said “with a heavy heart” in a pastoral letter dated Dec. 4.

The Baton Rouge bishop said the dispensation would remain “until the individual Catholic determines it is safe to attend Mass again” or until the dispensation is revoked. 

Duca instructed the faithful who chose to stay at home in accordance with the dispensation to gather as a family for prayer on Sunday. “Reading the daily Mass readings, praying the rosary, or reciting a novena for intercessory protection are all suitable alternative spiritual practices for those accepting this dispensation,” he said. 

Duca joins bishops in the dioceses of San Bernardino, California; Nashville, Tennessee; and Charlotte, North Carolina, in granting such a dispensation in 2025.

“National security and the protection of human dignity are not incompatible,” Duca continued in his letter, calling for “a just solution to this difficult situation in our country.” He noted that deportation efforts have affected not only the Catholic Hispanic community but also refugees and immigrants across denominations. “These are our neighbors, coworkers, and parishioners,” he said.

The bishop concluded: “For now, let us pray for those immediately affected, especially during this Advent season — a time in which we should be anticipating the joy of Christmas, surrounded by our family in celebration instead of the experience of anxiety and fear.”

“Through our prayers and actions, may those who are suffering know that Jesus’ words are addressed personally to each of them,” he said.

Duca’s letter comes after the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a special message condemning “the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” in November.

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 8, 2025 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV led the Angelus prayer Dec. 8 from the window of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican on the occasion of the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

Addressing the faithful and pilgrims in attendance in St. Peter’s Square, the pontiff commented that on Dec. 8 we express our joy because the Father of heaven wanted her to be “preserved immune from all stain of original sin.”

“The Lord has granted to Mary the extraordinary grace of a completely pure heart, in view of an even greater miracle: the coming of Christ the Savior,” he added.

The pope also noted that the gift of the fullness of grace in the young woman of Nazareth “was able to bear fruit because she in her freedom welcomed it, embracing the plan of God.”

He emphasized that “the Lord always acts in this way: He gives us great gifts, but he leaves us free to accept them or not.”

For the Holy Father, this feast also invites us to “believe as she believed, giving our generous assent to the mission to which the Lord calls us.”

In this way, he pointed out that the miracle that happened for Mary at her conception was “renewed for us in baptism: Cleansed from original sin, we have become children of God, his dwelling place and the temple of the Holy Spirit.”

“The ‘yes’ of the mother of the Lord is wonderful, but so also can ours be, renewed faithfully each day, with gratitude, humility, and perseverance, in prayer and in concrete acts of love, from the most extraordinary gestures to the most mundane and ordinary efforts and acts of service. In this way, Christ can be known, welcomed, and loved everywhere and salvation can come to everyone,” he emphasized.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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ROME (CNS) -- Celebrating the feast of the Immaculate Conception as the Jubilee Year was ending, Pope Leo XIV prayed that "Jubilee hope" would "blossom in Rome and in every corner of the earth," bringing with it reconciliation, nonviolence and peace.

Standing near the Spanish Steps in central Rome, at the foot of a towering column topped by a statue of Mary, the pope led thousands of Romans, pilgrims and tourists in prayer Dec. 8.

At dawn that morning, a firefighter named Roberto Leo, the fire service's longest serving department head in Rome, climbed up 100 rungs of an aerial ladder to place a wreath of white flowers on the outstretched arms of the statue about 90 feet above the ground.

Following a tradition begun in 1958 by St. John XXIII, Pope Leo blessed a basket of white roses that assistants placed at the foot of the statue and read a prayer specifically written for this year's feast, with references to what is going on in the church, the city and the world. 

In the prayer to Mary, Pope Leo noted that the Jubilee year brought millions of pilgrims to Rome, representing "a humanity tried, at times crushed, humble like the earth from which God shaped it and into which he never ceases to breathe his Spirit of life."

"Look, O Mary, upon the many sons and daughters in whom hope has not been extinguished: May what your Son has sown sprout within them -- he, the living Word who in each person asks to grow still more, to take on flesh, face and voice," the pope prayed.

As the Holy Doors of the major basilicas of Rome are about to close at the end of the Jubilee Jan. 6, he said, "may other doors now open: doors of homes and oases of peace where dignity may flower again, where nonviolence is taught, where the art of reconciliation is learned."

The pope prayed that Mary would "inspire new insights in the church that walks in Rome and in the particular churches that in every context gather the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of our contemporaries -- especially the poor and all who suffer." 

Pope Leo also expressed the hope that baptism, which washes every person free of original sin would "bring forth holy and immaculate men and women, called to become living members of the Body of Christ -- a body that acts, consoles, reconciles and transforms the earthly city where the city of God is being prepared."

In a world filled with "changes that seem to find us unprepared and powerless," he asked Mary to intercede and help.

"Inspire dreams, visions and courage, you who know better than anyone that nothing is impossible for God, and at the same time that God does nothing alone," he prayed.

The pope also asked Mary to help the church always be "with and among the people, leaven in the dough of a humanity that cries out for justice and hope."

Before heading to the Spanish Steps, the pope had led the recitation of the Angelus prayer at noon with visitors in St. Peter's Square.

By preserving Mary from any stain of sin from the moment of her conception, he said, God granted her "the extraordinary grace of a completely pure heart, in view of an even greater miracle: the coming of Christ the savior into the world as man."

That extraordinary grace bore extraordinary fruit, he said, "because in her freedom she welcomed it, embracing the plan of God."

"The Lord always acts in this way: he gives us great gifts, but he leaves us free to accept them or not," the pope said. "So, this feast, which makes us rejoice for the unsullied beauty of the Mother of God, also invites us to believe as she believed, giving our generous assent to the mission to which the Lord calls us."
 

Continuing a decades-old tradition of paying homage to the statue of the Immaculate Conception in Rome, Pope Leo prays at the foot of the 12-meter column on top of which the figure of the Virgin Mary is placed, and lays a wreath at the base.

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