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Vatican Rejects 'Doctrine of Discovery', Used to Justify Colonial Conquest and Land Theft
One Native American group hopes the historic move "is more than mere words, but rather is the beginning of a full acknowledgment of the history of oppression and a full accounting of the legacies of colonialism."
Mar 31, 2023
In a historic shift long sought by Indigenous-led activists, the Holy See on Thursday formally repudiated the doctrine of discovery, a dubious legal theory born from a series of 15th-century papal decrees used by colonizers including the United States to legally justify the genocidal conquest of non-Christian peoples and their land.
In a joint statement, the Vatican's departments of culture and education declared that "the church acknowledges that these papal bulls did not adequately reflectthe equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples" and "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 church is also aware that the contents of these documents 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," the statement added. "It is only just to recognize these errors, acknowledge the terrible effects of the assimilation policies and the pain experienced by Indigenous peoples, and ask for pardon."
\u201cDo you know how huge this is???!!!! The Doctrine of Discovery legalized the Catholic Church and European colonists to loot, kill Indians and claim conquest to Native lands!!! Now that this has happened!!!!! It\u2019s freakin huge!!! \nFreedom, recompense, https://t.co/4K7DySAo9n\u2026\u201d— Brandi Morin (@Brandi Morin) 1680192993
Indigenous leaders—who for decades demanded the Vatican rescind the discovery doctrine—welcomed the move, while expressing hope that it brings real change.
"On the surface it sounds good, it looks good... but there has to be a fundamental change in attitudes, behavior, laws, and policies from that statement," Ernie Daniels, the former chief of Long Plain First Nation in Manitoba, Canada, told CBC Thursday.
"There's still a mentality out there—they want to assimilate, decimate, terminate, eradicate Indigenous people," added Daniels, who was part of a delegation that met with Pope Francis last year in Rome and Canada.
\u201cToday, the Vatican announced the repudiation of its centuries-old Doctrine of Discovery, which was used to justify colonization and land theft across the globe. NCAI responded to the announcement. Read full statement: https://t.co/CxI1Vrsgpx\u201d— National Congress of American Indians (@National Congress of American Indians) 1680217681
The pontiff—who is currently hospitalized with a respiratory infection—apologized last July in Alberta for the church's human rights crimes against First Nations and asked for forgiveness "for the wrong done by so many Christians to the Indigenous peoples."
Ghislain Picard, an Innu leader and the regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations for Quebec and Labrador, told CBC that the Vatican's move is mostly symbolic.
"The Vatican seems to be washing its hands of its role in the whole colonization of our lands, and to me it would be so simple to just accept the fact that they played a role," he said. "Reconciliation is a buzzword. But how it impacts current policy is really what's at stake here."
\u201c"The Doctrine of Discovery was a papal statement and not a justification to allow Canada to unilaterally claim sovereignty over our peoples and our lands and commit genocide. And today, the Vatican finally said what our peoples have always known,\u201d said FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron.\u201d— FSIN (@FSIN) 1680189634
Discovery doctrine is rooted in a trio of papal decrees issued in the second half of the 15th century authorizing the Portuguese and Spanish monarchies to conquer land and enslave people in Africa and the Americas if they were non-Christians and dividing the Americas between the two burgeoning empires.
Nullified by the Vatican in the 16th century, the papal decrees nevertheless underpinned centuries of colonial conquest by Europeans and Euro-Americans.
In 1823, United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in Johnson v. M'Intosh that Indigenous people could not sell land to whites because Indians' "power to dispose of the soil at their own will to whomsoever they pleased was denied by the original fundamental principle that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it."
The precedent set by Johnson was cited as recently as 2005, when then-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg notoriously cited doctrine of discovery in Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation, an opinion decried by many Native Americans.
In a Thursday interview on Indian Country Today's newscast, Arizona State University law professor Robert Miller, who is Eastern Shawnee, said that "what the church did is an important worldwide educational moment, but it doesn't change the law in any country. It doesn't change titles to land anywhere."
\u201cWATCH: ASU Law Professor Robert Miller calls the repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery an important worldwide moment, saying "but it doesn't change the law in any country."\u201d— ICT (@ICT) 1680221937
"It's gonna take far more than just the pope repudiating these 600-year-old papal bulls to make real changes for Indigenous peoples," he added.
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In Leaked Draft, Pope Francis Takes 'Hard Core' Stance on Climate Debate
The Earth 'is protesting for the wrong that we are doing to her, because of the irresponsible use and abuse of the goods that God has placed on her,' pope encyclical warns
Jun 16, 2015
In a lengthy and moving letter to Roman Catholic bishops leaked on Monday, Pope Francis unequivocally asserts that "human activity" is to blame for our planet's destruction, and the only solution is for humanity to change its "lifestyle" and "consumption."
The draft encyclical, published by Italian newspaper L'Espresso on Monday, three days before its intended release, is making waves among the international community as it boldly condemns both climate-deniers and carbon credit speculation, and upholds the growing climate movement and push to divest from fossil fuels.
"Humanity is called to take note of the need for changes in lifestyle and changes in methods of production and consumption to combat this warming, or at least the human causes that produce and accentuate it," he wrote in the draft. "Numerous scientific studies indicate that the greater part of the global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases ... given off above all because of human activity."
The letter was intended for release on Thursday, ahead of the pope's scheduled address to the United Nations in September and less than six months before the upcoming UN climate change summit in Paris. On Monday evening, the Vatican condemned the early release, and reportedly asked journalists not to publish details of the draft, saying it was not the final text.
The draft letter, addressed to bishops but intended as a wider statement on Catholic doctrine, targets those who remain skeptical about the man-made causes of climate change or who believe that geoengineering schemes and other technical advances will permit industrialized nations to continue business as usual.
"The attitudes that stand in the way of a solution, even among believers, range from negation of the problem, to indifference, to convenient resignation or blind faith in technical solutions," reads the text.
Translating the leaked encyclical, the Guardianreports:
At the start of the draft essay, the pope wrote, the Earth "is protesting for the wrong that we are doing to her, because of the irresponsible use and abuse of the goods that God has placed on her. We have grown up thinking that we were her owners and dominators, authorized to loot her. The violence that exists in the human heart, wounded by sin, is also manifest in the symptoms of illness that we see in the Earth, the water, the air and in living things."
He immediately makes clear, moreover, that unlike previous encyclicals, this one is directed to everyone, regardless of religion. "Faced with the global deterioration of the environment, I want to address every person who inhabits this planet," the pope wrote. "In this encyclical, I especially propose to enter into discussion with everyone regarding our common home."
According to the leaked document, the pope will praise the global ecological movement, which has "already travelled a long, rich road and has given rise to numerous groups of ordinary people that have inspired reflection".
In a surprisingly specific and unambiguous passage, the draft rejects outright "carbon credits" as a solution to the problem. It says they "could give rise to a new form of speculation and would not help to reduce the overall emission of polluting gases". On the contrary, the pope wrote, it could help "support the super-consumption of certain countries and sectors".
The encyclical is not Pope Francis's first foray into the climate debate. In a message sent to the UN Climate Convention in Peru last December, he stated that addressing climate change is a "grave ethical and moral responsibility" and warned that "the time to find global solutions is running out."
Though the climate community had expected a call to action from the pope, in addition to statement on the connection between global inequality and climate change, the draft text was seen as a very significant contribution to the climate debate.
Wow: the Pope comes out against carbon credits because they encourage speculation and over-consumption. hard core! https://t.co/YE46weCzfV
-- Naomi Klein (@NaomiAKlein)
June 15, 2015\u201cEven in various goofy translations, it's clear that the Pope's letter will be deep and powerful. Can't wait to read the actual thing\u201d— Bill McKibben (@Bill McKibben) 1434462244
\u201cNo one - religious or atheist - should be in any doubt that the Pope's encyclical on defending the natural world is a big deal.\u201d— George Monbiot (@George Monbiot) 1434443938
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Obituary: Tariq Aziz
Former Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq
Jun 12, 2015
Tariq Aziz, former Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq has passed away. Twelve years of suffering in Iraqi jails have ended and he can finally rest in peace.
Unwell, deprived of adequate medical help and abandoned by the outside world, he was held hostage by Iraqi governments following the illegal invasion of Iraq by the US and the UK governments in 2003. Tariq Aziz was needed by a struggling authority as a symbol of victory after having inherited a destroyed nation following years of sanctions and a failed occupation.
It does not matter to us that our words of sadness and respect for Tariq Aziz - a leader during many dark days of his country - will be used by some to discredit us for alleged support of a dictatorial regime.
Tariq Aziz repeatedly impressed us with his commitment, with which he cooperated with the United Nations when we served at different times as UN humanitarian coordinators in Baghdad. His relentless efforts to prevent the 2003 war will not be forgotten. He was a hard but highly principled task master without whom the inadequate UN Security Council response to human suffering in Iraq would have had an even worse impact.
We have a good idea how the scales of justice would react were it possible to quantify the weight of wrong-doing against the people of Iraq contributed from within Iraq and from the outside.
During the past years, we had hoped that influential leaders would see it as their moral responsibility to see that Tariq Aziz, a sick and elderly statesman, would be allowed to live his last days in the comfort of his family. We were wrong. We had appealed to former US Secretary of State, James Baker, who co-chaired with Tariq Aziz the 1991 Geneva negotiations on Iraq, to support calls for humane treatment of his former counterpart. Baker refused to act as a statesman. We also had hoped to hear the Pope's voice for fellow Christian Tariq Aziz following our contact with the Holy See's foreign minister. The Vatican remained mute. Other leaders in Europe and elsewhere preferred silence to compassion.
Not even our own organization, the United Nations, could muster the courage to demand fair treatment for the man whom the organization had known over decades as a convincing and credible defender of Iraq's rights.
As time passes, we are certain that Tariq Aziz will increasingly be remembered as a strong leader who tried his best to protect the integrity of Iraq against all odds within his country and against outside interference by self-serving political forces.
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