The Doctrine of Discovery

 Much has been made lately of expectations that Pope Francis should apologize for the tragedies which took place at the residential schools for indigenous children. A significant percentage of these schools were Catholic institutions.  It is believed that hundreds, if not thousands, of children died at these schools.  Lately advanced radar techniques have located hundreds of unmarked graves on the grounds of these former schools. The graves which were discovered were in Canada, though there are likely similar ones in the US.  

People have been puzzled by the seeming reluctance of the pope to issue an apology. There are seemingly at least two things at play.  First, the schools were under the administration of local dioceses and the religious orders which ran them.  It is felt that they weren't the purview of the Vatican.  Additionally, I have read that the protocol would be be that the bishop's conferences of the areas in question would need to issue an invitation to the pope.  They haven't done this, at least not as a group.  

It is my feeling that an apology such as this shouldn't be pro forma, just done in response to expectations.  It should actually mean something. Which is why this article on the NCR site is relevant.  From the article:

"SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Bishop Douglas Lucia, whose downtown Syracuse office sits on the ancestral lands of the Onondaga Nation, hopes to meet with Pope Francis "to re-examine" 15th-century Vatican documents that justified colonization, land takeovers and oppression of Indigenous peoples."

"In the last decade, numerous congregations, denominations and faith-based organizations — including several women's religious communities — have urged the Vatican to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, which asserts European Christianity's superiority and power over other lands."

"Lucia appears to be the first U.S. Catholic bishop to publicly call for the Vatican and the U.S. Catholic Church to acknowledge the damage those documents caused and apologize for harming Indigenous peoples in the United States."

"Beginning with the 1452 Dum Diversas, several papal bulls outline directives Christian nations and European monarchs used to condone conquest of the Americas and other lands."

"Basically, it was taking away the right to ownership. Literally. It was subjugating them. They became second-class citizens," Lucia told The Catholic Sun, his diocesan newspaper. "Today we talk about white supremacy. This was white supremacy."

"Vatican representatives have said that subsequent documents and papal apologies show the church no longer supports the Doctrine of Discovery."

"The bishop's concerns, previously reported by National Catholic Register and Religion News Service, became public June 17 during the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' meeting when the prelates were discussing a proposal to develop a new formal statement and comprehensive vision for Native American and Alaskan Native ministry. They voted 223-6 to approved the proposal."

A draft may be reviewed at the November U.S. bishops' conference general assembly, Lucia said.

"The U.S. bishops' conference last issued a pastoral plan for Native Americans in 1977. About 20% of Native Americans are Catholic, and about 3.5% of U.S. Catholics are Native American, according to the bishops' conference website."

"They were talking about the residential schools," Lucia said. "My simple comment was I think we should address the Doctrine of Discovery because they're connected. I wanted to be conscious of that."

"....Indigenous peoples have for decades denounced the Doctrine of Discovery, but the 15th-century documents have drawn heightened scrutiny in recent years. Changing views of Native American sports mascots and statues honoring Christopher Columbus have raised new concerns about the relationship between the Catholic Church and Indigenous peoples."

To repudiate and apologize for the Doctrine of Discovery actually makes sense, because papal bulls are the purview of the Vatican.  I hadn't heard of the Doctrine of Discovery by name until lately.  However I was familiar with the Line of Demarcation of 1493, which extended to the crown of Castile by a series of bulls dominion over all the lands and peoples to the west of a particular meridian, not already under control of a Christian prince. The pope issuing the bulls was Alexander VI, who was a Spaniard, and whose surname was Borgia. 

 The Line of Demarcation was ostensibly to avoid a war between Spain and Portugal.  While avoiding a war is a good thing, what was needed was authentic Christian teaching to the two of them,  rather than "permission" to rape, pillage, and plunder the indigenous people of the New World.  The church didn't cause colonialism, but it enabled it.  Even though the Doctrine of Discovery has long been superceded and rejected, it was both a cause and a symptom of the mindset that resulted in things such as the residential schools, in which indigenous people were considered "other" and not meriting protection and dignity. To wholeheartedly apologize and formally repudiate it would be to the point.