https://www.npr.org/2023/03/30/1167056438/vatican-doctrine-of-discovery-colonialism-indigenous

“Invoking the Christian mandate to respect the dignity of every human being, the Vatican said on Thursday, "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.' "

"The statement repudiates the very mindsets and worldview that gave rise to the original papal bulls," the Rev. David McCallum, executive director of the Program for Discerning Leadership based in Rome, told NPR.

"It renounces the mindset of cultural or racial superiority which allowed for that objectification or subjection of people, and strongly condemns any attitudes or actions that threaten or damage the dignity of the human person."

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Wow. The immutable - "... the very mindsets and worldview" wrapped up in religion that formulated beliefs and actions that justified conquering and subjugating others - has been repudiated.


From the article:

"So what began as a religious decree in the 1400s then became the basis for a legal concept in the U.S., when the Doctrine of Discovery was invoked in an 1823 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Indigenous people had only rights of "occupancy," not ownership, over lands they had long lived on. The land, then, was open for the taking."


[Last year on trip to B.C. Pope apologized to youth delegate] "Behn-Tsakoza [who] welcomed the pope's action. But she also noted the irreparable harm done to her culture by centuries of subjugation and to families like her own by decades of forced assimilation — and she called on Francis to renounce the Doctrine of Discovery."


"The Vatican also invoked the pope's words from his visit to Canada last year: "Never again can the Christian community allow itself to be infected by the idea that one culture is superior to others, or that it is legitimate to employ ways of coercing others."

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Mindset. Worldview. Infection.

Words used to describe these particular religious beliefs (and they apply to others, I'm aware).

So wait. You mean it's not true doctrine? Not God's will? Not inspired?

Brings into question other unchangeable unwavering immutable eternal pronouncements.

Not scripture but only a mindset?

It makes the entire thing so very much more tragic. Just an idea people grabbed hold of and the result was beyond catastrophic.


*I'm aware this doesn't only apply to Catholicism but they did make their mark and it was calamitous.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2023 04:31PM by Nightingale.

It's easy to say "whoops" hundreds of years later. I would expect a moral religion to do the right thing at the right time for once. They never seem to learn.

Every time the Vatican does something like this, it just reminds me of the elephant in the room.

Francis is afraid of the elephant.

>> It's easy to say "whoops" hundreds of years later.

Exactly. I was reading a book with my students about Galileo, and I was struck anew by how long he spent in jail for simply following the science -- not to mention *how long* the Roman Catholic church took to exonerate him.

+1.0 x 10^9