(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Five centuries and many Papal bulls later, The Vatican renounces its Discovery Doctrine [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2023-04-02  

Pope Francis just repudiated the Vatican’s 15th century Doctrine of Discovery. Entire nations still use this doctrine as the legal basis for the occupation of stolen indigenous land.

“The Vatican has clarified that the papal bulls associated with the Doctrine of Discovery have no legal or moral authority in the Church” the bishops say “However, we understand the desire to name these texts acknowledge their impact & renounce the concepts associated with them”

The statement, from the Vatican's development and education offices, marked a historic recognition of the Vatican's own complicity in colonial-era abuses committed by European powers and was issued as history's first Latin American pontiff, who has made remarkable apologies to Native peoples, was hospitalized with a respiratory infection.

Indigenous leaders welcomed the statement, even though it continued to take some distance from acknowledging actual Vatican culpability. The statement said the papal documents had been "manipulated" for political purposes by colonial powers "to justify immoral acts against Indigenous peoples that were carried out, at times, without opposition from ecclesial authorities."

ictnews.org/...

The Vatican formally repudiated on Thursday the “Doctrine of Discovery,” a legal concept based on 15th-century papal documents that European colonial powers used to legitimize the seizure and exploitation of Indigenous lands in Africa and the Americas, among other places.

The decision comes after decades of demands from Indigenous people to rescind the doctrine, which was used for centuries to “expropriate Indigenous lands and facilitate their transfer to colonizing or dominating nations,” according to one United Nations forum.

The Roman Catholic Church “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,’” a joint statement from the Vatican’s development and education offices said. The doctrine is “not part of the teaching of the Catholic Church,” it said, and the documents in question “have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith.”

Demands that the doctrine be discredited grew last summer when Pope Francis, the first pope from Latin America, visited Canada to apologize to Indigenous communities for the church’s role in ​the country’s notorious residential school system, ​​where thousands of Indigenous children were physically and sexually abused, and in some cases, died. Suspected unmarked graves are still being found.

www.nytimes.com/...

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/2/2161568/-Five-centuries-and-many-Papal-bulls-later-The-Vatican-renounces-its-Discovery-Doctrine

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/