XPost: alt.religion.christian.catholic, soc.history, alt.religion.christianity   
   XPost: alt.politics.religion, alt.christnet.religion   
   From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   Vatican rejects ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ justifying colonialism   
      
   After decades of demands by Indigenous people, Vatican ‘repudiates’   
   theories that backed colonial-era seizure of lands.   
      
   Calls to rescind the Doctrine of Discovery grew louder last year when   
   Pope Francis made a trip to Canada to apologise for the Catholic   
   Church's role in abuses at so-called residential schools [File:   
   Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters]   
      
   Published On 30 Mar 2023   
      
   The Vatican has rejected the “Doctrine of Discovery”, a 15th-century   
   concept laid out in so-called “papal bulls” that were used to justify   
   European Christian colonialists’ seizure of Indigenous lands in Africa   
   and the Americas.   
      
   In a statement on Thursday, the Vatican’s development and education   
   office said the theory (PDF) – which still informs government policies   
   and laws today – was not part of the Catholic Church’s teachings.   
      
   It said the papal bulls were “manipulated for political purposes by   
   competing colonial powers in order to justify immoral acts against   
   Indigenous peoples that were carried out, at times, without opposition   
   from ecclesiastical authorities”.   
      
   “In no uncertain terms, the Church’s magisterium upholds the respect   
   due to every human being,” the statement reads. “The Catholic Church   
   therefore repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the   
   inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become   
   known as the legal and political ‘doctrine of discovery’.”   
      
   For decades, Indigenous leaders and community advocates had urged the   
   Catholic Church to rescind the Doctrine of Discovery, which stated   
   that European colonialists could claim any territory not yet   
   “discovered” by Christians.   
      
   The papal bulls played a key role in the European conquest of Africa   
   and the Americas, and their effects are still felt by Indigenous   
   people.   
      
      
   Calls to rescind the Doctrine of Discovery grew louder last year when   
   Pope Francis made a trip to Canada during which he apologised for the   
   Catholic Church’s role in widespread abuses that took place at   
   so-called residential schools.   
      
   Between the late 1800s and 1990s, more than 150,000 Inuit, First   
   Nation and Metis children across Canada were taken from their families   
   and communities and obligated to attend the forced-assimilation   
   institutions, which were rife with physical, psychological and sexual   
   violence.   
      
   The Haudenosaunee External Relations Committee said at the time of the   
   pope’s residential school apology that more action was needed from the   
   church – notably, the revocation of the papal bulls.   
      
   “An apology to Indigenous Peoples without action are just empty words.   
   The Vatican must revoke these Papal Bulls and stand up for Indigenous   
   Peoples’ rights to their lands in courts, legislatures and elsewhere   
   in the world,” the committee said in a July 2022 statement.   
      
   Indigenous leaders welcomed Thursday’s Vatican statement, even though   
   it continued to take some distance from acknowledging actual   
   culpability.   
      
   Phil Fontaine, a former national chief of the Assembly of First   
   Nations in Canada who was part of the delegation that met with Pope   
   Francis at the Vatican before last year’s trip and then accompanied   
   him throughout, said the statement was “wonderful”.   
      
   He said it resolved an outstanding issue and now put the matter to   
   civil authorities to revise property laws that cite the doctrine.   
      
   “The Holy Father promised that upon his return to Rome, they would   
   begin work on a statement which was designed to allay the fears and   
   concerns of many survivors and others concerned about the relationship   
   between their Catholic Church and our people, and he did as he said he   
   would do,” Fontaine told The Associated Press news agency.   
      
   “Now the ball is in the court of governments, the United States and in   
   Canada, but particularly in the United States where the doctrine is   
   embedded in the law,” he said.   
      
   “Today’s news on the Vatican’s formal repudiation of the Doctrine of   
   Discovery is the result of hard work and advocacy on the part of   
   Indigenous leadership and communities,” Canadian Justice Minister   
   David Lametti wrote on Twitter. “A doctrine that should have never   
   existed. This is another step forward.”   
      
   The Doctrine of Discovery was cited as recently as a 2005 US Supreme   
   Court decision involving the Oneida Indian Nation and written by the   
   late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.   
      
   On Thursday, the Vatican offered no evidence that the three papal   
   bulls (Dum Diversas in 1452, Romanus Pontifex in 1455 and Inter   
   Caetera in 1493) had themselves been formally abrogated, rescinded or   
   rejected, as Vatican officials have often said.   
      
   But it cited a subsequent papal bull, Sublimis Deus in 1537, that   
   reaffirmed that Indigenous peoples should not be deprived of their   
   liberty or the possession of their property, and were not to be   
   enslaved.   
      
   Cardinal Michael Czerny, the Canadian Jesuit whose office co-authored   
   the statement, stressed that the original papal bulls had long ago   
   been abrogated and that the use of the term “doctrine” — which in this   
   case is a legal term, not a religious one — had led to centuries of   
   confusion about the church’s role.   
      
   The original papal bulls, he said, “are being treated as if they were   
   teaching, magisterial or doctrinal documents, and they are an ad hoc   
   political move. And I think to solemnly repudiate an ad hoc political   
   move is to generate more confusion than clarity”.   
      
   He stressed that the statement was not just about setting the   
   historical record straight, but “to discover, identify, analyse and   
   try to overcome what we can only call the enduring effects of   
   colonialism today”.   
      
   Michele Audette, an Innu senator who was one of the five commissioners   
   responsible for conducting the National Inquiry into Missing and   
   Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada, told the Canadian   
   Broadcasting Corporation that the announcement left her in disbelief.   
      
   “It’s big,” she said in an interview on CBC Daybreak. “That doctrine   
   made sure we did not exist or were even recognised … It’s one of the   
   root causes of why the relationship is so broken.”   
      
   SOURCE: AL JAZEERA, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS https://t.co/jBJ8hXe69R   
   --   
   Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa   
   Web:  http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm   
   Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com   
      
   For information about why crossposting is (usually) good, and multiposting   
   (nearly always) bad, see:   
   http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/unice.htm#xpost   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)