On March 30, 2023, two of the Vatican’s administrative councils – the Culture and Education Council, and the Promoting Integral Human Development council – jointly issued a pronouncement with the following statement: “In no uncertain terms, the Church’s magisterium upholds the respect due to every human being. 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’”. (You can read the full statement HERE.)
At the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions, the request from the Indigenous leaders in attendance was to: “Help us find a way to convince the Catholic Church to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery”. A little over thirteen years later, we can celebrate success. During those intervening years, many non-Catholic faith traditions issued statements of repudiation, along with other religious and secular organizations. Those statements were important and added strength and advocacy to the continuing call for action, first to Pope Benedict XVI and then to Pope Francis.
While that 2009 Parliament was perhaps the first and certainly the largest (there were around 9,000 attendees) the Indigenous leaders had addressed, there had been work done on the issue for more than 15 years at that point. The United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples was created in 1982 and brought together leaders from throughout the world to discuss and document the oppression experienced by Indigenous Peoples. Those discussions led to a decision to create a resolution that would be presented to the UN General Assembly. It took 12 years to complete the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It was presented for acceptance in 2007. There were 34 countries who were not present in the chamber to vote; 11 countries abstained; 143 countries voted to accept. There were only 4 countries that voted ‘NO’ – the former colonies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. There were various reasons these countries had voted ‘NO’. But world-wide pressure directed at the four countries resulted in all of them subsequently changing their vote to ‘YES’ within a relatively short time. The Declaration is a well conceived rebuttal to the Doctrine of Discovery and the practices of colonization, without ever mentioning the Doctrine except in this one statement in the Preamble that does specifically mention the underlying theories of colonization found in the Doctrine of Discovery: “Affirming further that all doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust,” (You can read the full Declaration HERE)
This recent repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery is important for the continuing struggle to neutralize the worldwide oppression of Indigenous Peoples. However, it, in and of itself, will change no laws in any country that has experienced the colonization of its Indigenous Peoples that affected their land, culture and well-being. It is an important step and should add significant power and reasoning in the efforts to address the oppressive issues facing both the colonized and the colonizers.
Indigenous Leaders from around the world are watching to see what steps the Vatican will take next to actualize this new policy, this revised worldview. They point out that there are a considerable number of important and sacred artifacts held in Vatican museums that should be returned. There are thousands of acres of land confiscated by Vatican agents and representatives that could be the subject of a negotiated transfer of ownership. And the Indigenous Peoples in Canada and the United States would desperately like to have access to the attendance records of the boarding schools administered by the Catholic Church in order to find and bring home their children who never returned.
There are ‘questionable’ statements in the announcement. It highlights the 1537 Papal Bull by Pope Paul III, but it does not mention the retraction that he issued less than a year later. (see Pope Paul III) It also suggests these particular Papal Bulls were not meant to be ‘mainstream’ church policy and were somehow manipulated by political entities. That’s a hard argument to support when a Pope draws a line on the world map giving half to the Portuguese and the other half to the Spanish. But, to be fair, it also states that the “… immoral acts against Indigenous peoples were carried out, at times, without opposition from ecclesial authorities.” That is a significant admission it was wrong and should have been stopped.
The Rev. David McCallum, a Jesuit priest who has been working with Indigenous people in the United States, said, “It’s not so much about the legal implications, which scholars understand are very complex, but it’s about the rejection of the mind-set that gave rise to the colonial impulse and even to the missionary impulse of those times.” (www.nytimes.com – 2023/03/30) Philip P. Arnold, a professor of religious studies at Syracuse University echoes McCallum stating the repudiation is a “good first step,” but the Vatican still had not “owned up to a worldview” underpinning the doctrine, which upheld the superiority of Christianity. “It’s not just a legalistic formulation that we’re trying to get clarity on,” Arnold continued, “it’s a worldview that is set in motion during the age of discovery, that we’re still having to cope with in these urgent times ….” (www.nytimes.com – 2023/03/30)
The Papal Bulls from the Doctrine of Discovery have been repudiated and that is a good thing. But, the Doctrine is still with us in the many ways it has birthed so many Colonization Practices.