reconciliation

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is expected to soon announce that it will return a few dozen artifacts to Indigenous communities in Canada as part of its reckoning with the Catholic Church’s troubled role in helping suppress Indigenous culture in the Americas, officials said Wednesday.

The items, including an Inuit kayak, are part of the Vatican Museum’s ethnographic collection, known as the Anima Mundi museum. The collection has been a source of controversy for the Vatican amid the broader museum debate over the restitution of cultural goods taken from Indigenous peoples during colonial periods.

Negotiations on returning the Vatican items accelerated after Pope Francis in 2022 met with Indigenous leaders who had traveled to the Vatican to receive his apology for the church’s role in running Canada’s disastrous residential schools. During their visit, they were shown some objects in the collection, including wampum belts, war clubs and masks, and asked for them to be returned.

Francis later said he was in favor of returning the items and others in the Vatican collection on a case-by-case basis, saying: “In the case where you can return things, where it’s necessary to make a gesture, better to do it.”

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said Wednesday it has been working with Indigenous groups on returning the items to their “originating communities.” It said it expected the Holy See to announce the return. Vatican and Canadian officials said they expected an announcement in the coming weeks, and that the items could arrive on Canadian soil before the end of the year.

The Globe and Mail newspaper first reported on the progress in the restitution negotiations.

Doubt cast on whether the items were freely given

Most of the items in the Vatican collection were sent to Rome by Catholic missionaries for a 1925 exhibition in the Vatican gardens that was a highlight of that year’s Holy Year.

The Vatican insists the items were “gifts” to Pope Pius XI, who wanted to celebrate the church’s global reach, its missionaries and the lives of the Indigenous peoples they evangelized.

But historians, Indigenous groups and experts have long questioned whether the items could really have been offered freely, given the power imbalances at play in Catholic missions at the time. In those years, Catholic religious orders were helping to enforce the Canadian government’s forced assimilation policy of eliminating Indigenous traditions, which Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called “cultural genocide.”

Part of that policy included confiscating items used in Indigenous spiritual and traditional rituals, such as the 1885 potlatch ban that prohibited the integral First Nations ceremony. Those confiscated items ended up in museums in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, as well as private collections.

The return of the items in the Vatican collection will follow the “church-to-church” model the Holy See used in 2023, when it gave its Parthenon Marbles to the Orthodox Christian Church in Greece. The three fragments were described by the Vatican as a “donation” to the Orthodox church, not a state-to-state repatriation to the Greek government.

In this case, the Vatican is expected to hand over the items to the Canadian bishops conference, with the explicit understanding that the ultimate keepers will be the Indigenous communities, a Canadian official said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are not concluded.

What happens after the items are returned

The items, accompanied by whatever provenance information the Vatican has, will be taken first to the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec. There, experts and Indigenous groups will try to identify where the items originated, down to the specific community, and what should be done with them, the official said.

The official declined to say how many items were under negotiation or who decided what would be returned, but said the total numbered “a few dozen.” The aim is to get the items back this year, the official said, noting the 2025 Jubilee which celebrates hope but is also a time for repentance.

This year’s Jubilee comes on the centenary of the 1925 Holy Year and missionary exhibit, which is now so controversial that its 100th anniversary has been virtually ignored by the Vatican, which celebrates a lot of anniversaries.

The Assembly of First Nations said some logistical issues need to be finalized before the objects can be returned, including establishing protocols.

“For First Nations, these items are not artifacts. They are living, sacred pieces of our cultures and ceremonies and must be treated as the invaluable objects that they are,” National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak told Canadian Press.

Gloria Bell, associate professor of art history at McGill University who has conducted extensive research on the 1925 exhibit, said the items were acquired during an era of “Catholic Imperialism” by a pope who “praised missionaries and their genocidal labors in Indigenous communities as ‘heroes of the faith.’”

“This planned return marks a significant shift in the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and perhaps the beginning of healing,” said Bell, who is of Metis ancestry and wrote about the 1925 exhibit in “Eternal Sovereigns: Indigenous Artists, Activists, and Travelers Reframing Rome.”

Winfield writes for the Associated Press.

SEOUL, July 28 (UPI) — Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said Monday that Pyongyang had “no interest” in efforts by the administration of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung to improve hostile relations between the neighbors.

Her statement was the North’s first official comment on Lee, who was elected in June after former President Yoon Suk Yeol was removed from office over his botched martial law attempt.

“We did not care who is elected president or what policy is being pursued in the ROK and, therefore, have not made any assessment of it so far,” Kim said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The Republic of Korea is the official name of South Korea.

Kim said that the new administration’s ongoing military ties with Washington made any efforts at rapprochement pointless.

“When only the 50-odd days since Lee Jae Myung’s assumption to power are brought to light … their blind trust to the ROK-U.S. alliance and their attempt to stand in confrontation with the DPRK are little short of their predecessor’s,” Kim said, using the official acronym for North Korea.

“We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither the reason to meet nor the issue to be discussed,” Kim said.

Lee has pledged to improve inter-Korean relations, which have sharply deteriorated in recent years after a period of diplomatic progress in 2018-19. Last month, he suspended propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts at the DMZ and cracked down on activists floating balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border. Seoul also recently repatriated six North Koreans who drifted into southern waters on wooden boats several months ago.

Kim, however, rejected the administration’s gestures in her statement, calling the loudspeaker suspensions “nothing but a reversible turning back of what they should not have done in the first place.”

“In other words, it is not the work worthy of appreciation,” she said.

Seoul’s Ministry of Unification, which oversees inter-Korean relations, said Kim’s remarks showed that Pyongyang is “closely watching the direction of the Lee Jae Myung administration’s policy toward North Korea.”

“The wall of distrust between the South and the North is very high due to the hostile confrontation policy of the past few years,” ministry spokesman Koo Byung-sam said at a press briefing on Monday.

“The government will not overreact to North Korea’s response, but will continue to calmly and consistently pursue efforts to create inter-Korean relations of reconciliation and cooperation and to realize peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula,” Koo said.

Newly appointed Unification Minister Chung Dong-young emphasized the need to resume dialogue with North Korea when he took office on Friday.

“Restoring disconnected communication channels between North and South Korea is an urgent priority for resuming inter-Korean dialogue and quickly restoring trust,” Chung said during a visit to the border truce village of Panmunjom inside the DMZ.

In her statement, Kim called for the Unification Ministry to be abolished and said that Chung was “spinning a daydream” with reconciliation efforts.

“There can be no change in our state’s understanding of the enemy and they can not turn back the hands of the clock … which has radically changed the character of the DPRK-ROK relations,” she said.

In October, North Korea revised its Constitution to declare the South a “hostile state” after Kim Jong Un called for the rejection of the long-held official goal of reunification.

FX on Hulu has asked that a spoiler alert head any detailed reviews of the new, fourth season of “The Bear.” And while this review is not really detailed, everyone has their own idea of what constitutes a spoiler. So, read on, if you dare.

Most television series, and not just the best ones, are organic. You can plan in a vague way, but you learn as you go along — what the actors can do, what characters are going to demand more screen time, what unexpected opportunities present themselves, what the series is telling you about itself. This can make a show feel inconsistent across time, but often better in the end, as much as it may irritate viewers who liked how things were back at the beginning.

Early in the fourth season of “The Bear,” premiering Wednesday on FX on Hulu, the staff of the series’ eponymous restaurant finally sees the Chicago Tribune review they were anticipating throughout much of Season 3, and when it comes, it contains words like “confusing,” “show-offy” and “dissonant.” (It’s beautiful to see the review represented in a physical newspaper.) The show’s third season was accused by some fans and critics of similar things, and whether or not creator and showrunner Christopher Storer is drawing a comparison here, it’s true that “The Bear” doesn’t behave like most series — the recent shows it most resembles are “Atlanta” and “Reservation Dogs,” both from FX, and going back a little, HBO’s “Treme,” which, like “The Bear,” are less invested in plot than in character, place and feeling.

For all the series’ specific detail and naturalistic production, the eponymous Bear is a fairy-tale restaurant, staffed by people who not long before were hustling to get beef sandwiches out the door but, encouraged by Jeremy Allen White’s brilliant chef Carmen, have revealed individual superpowers in relatively short time. (Carmy asks Marcus, a genius of dessert played by Lionel Boyce, how he achieved a certain effect in a new sweet; “Legerdemain,” Marcus replies.) If you want to see real restaurants in operation, there are plenty of options, from Netflix’s “Chef’s Table,” to Frederick Wiseman’s “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,” a four-hour film about a Michelin three-star restaurant in central France. (It streams from PBS.org; you have until March 2027 to catch it there, and should.) But this invented place, which is real enough for its purposes, is primarily a stage for human striving, failure and success — and love. Come for the food, stay for the people.

After the first two seasons, which involved transforming the Beef, the sandwich shop Carmy inherited from his late brother Mikey, and creating the Bear, the third looked around and over its shoulder, flashing back and stretching out and developing themes that are taken up again in Season 4, which begins so hot on the heels of three they might as well be one. (They were filmed back-to-back.) The chaos and expense created by Carmy’s “nonnegotiable” decision to change the menu every night; the prospect of the Tribune review; and a participation agreement for sous-chef-turned-creative partner Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) are still working their way through the story. It begins more prosaically, certainly when compared with the impressionistic montage that occupied the whole of last season’s opening episode. And, apart from an opening flashback in which Carmy tells Mikey (Jon Bernthal) of his vision for a restaurant (“We could make it calm, we could make it delicious, we could play good music, people would want to come in there and celebrate … we could make people happy”), it stays in the present, facing forward.

Once again, we get a ticking clock to create pressure; installed by the “uncle” they call Computer (Brian Koppelman), it’s timed not as before to the opening of the restaurant but to the point at which backer Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) will pull out and the Bear will “cease operations.” (It’s set to 1,440 hours, or 60 days.) But deadlines come and go on this show, and though we’re treated to repeated shots of the countdown clock, it doesn’t create much actual tension. There is always something more immediately concerning, in the kitchen or out in the world.

Ticking clocks remain a motif in Season 4 of “The Bear.” Ayo Edebiri, left, with Liza Colón-Zayas in a scene from this season.

(FX)

For all his messing with the menu in search of a Michelin star, Carmy is stuck in a rut — cue clip from “Groundhog Day” — and has also become maddeningly inarticulate, almost beyond speech; much of what White does this year is listen and react, doing subtle work with his face and fingers, interjecting an occasional “Yeah,” while family or colleagues unburden themselves or take him to task. “Is this performative?” Richie asks a moping Carmy. “You waiting for me to ask if you’re OK?”

Some of his self-flagellation feels unearned — which I suppose is often the case with self-flagellation. (“You would be just as good … without this need for, like, mess,” says Syd.) Carmy can be a handful, but he’s led his team into this land of milk and honey, and if the Bear is dysfunctional, it nevertheless manages to put food on the table, create delight and pay its people. Still, this is a season of apologies — even Uncle Jimmy is saying he’s sorry, through a closed door, to his teenage son — and reconciliations. (You didn’t suppose you’d seen the last of Claire, Carmy’s on-again, off-again romantic interest, played by Molly Gordon?)

Some developments can seem abrupt, possibly because so many of these characters are bad at communicating or lie about how they’re feeling, saying that everything is OK when everything is not OK. But in the long view, the view that extends even beyond the end of the series, whether it comes sooner or later, everything will be OK. Whatever Emmy nitpickers might have to say about its category, “The Bear” is most definitely a comedy; there’ll be obstacles, but everyone’s on a road to happiness. A double-wide episode, set at the wedding of Richie’s ex-wife, Tiffany (Gillian Jacobs), mirrors the calamitous “Fishes” Christmas-dinner episode from Season 2, with most of that extended cast present again. But here, there is dancing.

Richie, running the front of the house, continues on his journey of self-improvement, crafting inspirational addresses to the staff, meditating on a photo of a Japanese Zen garden and dealing in an adult way with his soon-to-be-remarried ex-wife and daughter; the Bear has become his lifeline. Gary (Corey Hendrix, getting some deserved screen time) is being educated as a sommelier; Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) is working to put pasta on the plate in under three minutes; Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) is killing it at the sandwich window and looking to “create opportunity” with a new delivery app, a robot called Chuckie and a business mentor (Rob Reiner). Come for the food, stay for the people.

Above all, this is Syd’s year, which is, of course, also to say Edebiri’s. She’s got decisions to make and has been given long, often intense, two-person scenes, not only with Carmy but with Jimmy and Claire and an 11-year-old girl she suddenly finds herself babysitting, and with whom she spends most of an episode; Syd describes her dilemma in terms an 11-year-old might understand and receives the blunt advice an 11-year-old might give.

Carmy, for his part, thinks he knows how to fix things, which he will finally get around to sharing. Is it a good idea? Will it work? Will we ever know, and do we need to know? Is this the final season? (No one has said.) It closes on what is not quite an end — that not everything ties up feels very on brand for the series, and like life, which doesn’t run on schedule — and a sort of beginning. (I would just point out that R.E.M.’s “Strange Currencies,” or as I have called it, “Love Theme From ‘The Bear,’” playing very quietly in a scene behind Richie and highly evolved Chef Jessica [Sarah Ramos] may be a gentle nod to their unseen future.)

It can be corny, it can be obvious. It indulges in gestures as grand and unlikely as creating snow for a guest, and as small as a sandwich being cut to make it a little more friendly, a little more fancy. Both are moving.

Good restaurants serve a reliable version of familiar food, food anyone can like. Great ones do something peculiar that won’t be to everyone’s taste, won’t even make sense, but might inspire love. So it is with television shows.