VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican on Thursday responded to Indigenous demands and formally rejected the “Doctrine of Discovery,” theories backed by 15th-century “papal bulls” that legitimized colonial rule. dispossession of Native lands and forms the basis of some property laws today.
A Vatican statement said the 15th-century papal bulls, or decrees, “do not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of indigenous peoples” and were never considered expressions of the Catholic faith.
It said that the documents were “copied” for political purposes by the colonial powers “to justify the immoral acts against the Natives that were carried out, sometimes, without opposition from the church authorities. “
The statement, from the Vatican’s development and education offices, said it was right to “recognize these mistakes,” acknowledging the terrible effects of colonial-era assimilation policies on Indigenous peoples and ask for their forgiveness.
The statement is a response to decades of Indigenous demands for the Vatican to formally annul the papal bulls that gave the Portuguese and Spanish kingdoms religious support to expand their territories in Africa and the Americas for the spread of Christianity.
Those orders were subject to the “Doctrine of Discovery,” a legal concept developed in a US Supreme Court decision in 1823 that was understood to mean ownership and sovereignty over land passed to Europeans because it was “discovered.” it’s theirs.
It was recently cited as a 2005 Supreme Court decision involving the Oneida Indian Nation written by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
During Pope Francis’ 2022 visit to Canada, where he apologized to Indigenous peoples for the residential school system that forcibly removed Native children from their homes, he was met with demands for a formal repudiation of the papal bulls..
Two Indigenous women unfurled a banner at the altar of the National Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré on July 29 that read: “Withdraw the Doctrine” in bright red and black letters. The protesters were escorted away and the Mass continued without incident, though the women marched the banner out of the basilica and draped it over the railing.
In the statement, the Vatican said: “In no uncertain terms, the magisterium of the Church promotes respect for every person. That is why the Catholic Church rejects those concepts that do not recognize the natural human rights of indigenous people, including what has become known legally and politically as the “doctrine of discovery.”
The Vatican has not provided evidence that the three 15th-century papal bulls (Dum Diversas in 1452, Romanus Pontifex in 1455 and Inter Caetera in 1493) were themselves formally revoked, revoked or rejected, as is often the case. Vatican officials said. But it cited a subsequent bull, Sublimis Deus in 1537, which reaffirmed that Natives should not be deprived of their freedom or property, and should not be enslaved.
It is very significant that the rejection of the “Doctrine of Discovery” came during the pontificate of the first Latin American pope in history. The Argentine Francis, still before the trip to Canada, apologized to the Indigenous people of Bolivia in 2015 for the crimes of occupation during the colonial America. It was released while he was in the hospital on Thursday with a respiratory infection.
Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, prefect of the Vatican’s cultural office, said the statement was a reflection of the Vatican’s dialogue with Indigenous peoples.
“This Note is part of what we might call the architecture of reconciliation and also the product of the art of reconciliation, the process by which people commit to listening to each other, to speaking to each other and to grow in mutual understanding,” he said. in a statement.
