Indigenous Reconciliation

As Canadian Catholics see the year 2025 to a close, the Church on Canada’s western shores looked back on 2025 as a significant moment in reconciliation history.

Canadian Catholics must persevere in the vision “of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people walking together in prayerful and respectful ways towards a stronger, shared future,” said the Canadian Catholic Indigenous Council in its annual message for the National Day of Prayer in Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples, Dec. 12.

A deeply prayerful celebration greeted the return of 62 Indigenous artifacts to Canada from the Vatican at Montreal’s Trudeau Airport Dec. 6.

Pope Leo XIV welcomed CCCB representatives to Rome and gifted 62 Indigenous artifacts from the Vatican Museums' ethnological collections for transfer to National Indigenous Organizations (NIOs).

Pope Leo XIV fulfilled a promise made by the late Pope Francis to return to Canada's Indigenous communities artifacts -- including an Inuit kayak, masks, moccasins and etchings -- that have been held by the Vatican for more than 100 years.

The Vatican is poised to return a collection of a “few dozen” cultural treasures from its Anima Mundi ethnological museum to Indigenous communities across Canada before the end of the Jubilee year.

Text posted by the Archdiocese of Toronto on the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.

What does it mean to be created in God’s image? We know from Genesis 1.27 that people are created in God’s image. However, since God is unseen and unseeable, our response to this question must necessarily be the result of groping in the darkness.

Register staff explore the breaking news of a potential ceasefire in Gaza, Conlon’s latest column on the Nobel Peace Prize, and Amundson unpacks Canada’s plummeting fertility rates and the contradiction of federal policies funding abortion and MAiD while chasing population growth.

As Catholics joined Canadians nationwide in marking the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Sept. 30, and the following weekend in supporting the Church's Indigenous Reconciliation Fund (IRF) collection, many are seeing how Pope Francis' penitential pilgrimage continues to resonate.