The Vatican rejects the colonial doctrine of discovery

VATICAN CITY (AP) – The Vatican on Thursday responded to indigenous demands by formally repudiating the Discovery Doctrine, theories backed by 15th-century papal bulls that legitimized colonial-era indigenous land grabs and were the basis for some current property laws.

A Vatican statement said the pope’s decrees or decrees from the 15th century “did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of indigenous peoples” and were never considered an expression of the Catholic faith.

He noted that the documents had been “manipulated” for political purposes by the colonial powers “to justify immoral acts against indigenous peoples that were committed, on occasions, without opposition from the ecclesiastical authorities”.

The statement from the Vatican Offices of Development and Education noted that it was appropriate to “acknowledge these wrongs”, acknowledge the terrible effects of colonial policies of assimilation of indigenous peoples, and ask for their pardon.

The statement responded to decades of indigenous demands for the Vatican to officially cancel the papal bulls that provided religious support to the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal to expand their lands in Africa and the Americas under the pretext of spreading Christianity.

These ordinances underpin the Doctrine of Discovery, a legal concept formulated in a US Supreme Court decision in 1823 that has been interpreted to mean that ownership and sovereignty of land passed to Europeans because they “discovered” it.

The principle was most recently cited in a 2005 Supreme Court decision on the Oneida Indian Nation, which was written by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

During Pope Francis’ visit to Canada in 2022, where he apologized to indigenous peoples for an internal boarding system that forcibly removed indigenous children from their homes, he found allegations that the church had formally repudiated papal bulls.

On July 29, two indigenous women unfurled a banner over the altar of the Santa Ana de Beaupre National Reserve that read “Abolish the Doctrine” in large red and black letters. The demonstrators were escorted from the venue and the mass went without incident, although women later carried the banner from the basilica and hung it on a railing.

In its statement, the Vatican said, “In clear terms, the Magisterium of the Church respects due respect for all human beings. Therefore, the Catholic Church renounces those concepts that do not recognize the inherent human rights of indigenous peoples, including what is known as the legal and political ‘discovery doctrine’.”

The Vatican has presented no evidence that the three 15th-century papal bulls (Dom Diversas in 1452, Romanus Pontifex in 1455, and Inter Caetera in 1493) have ever been formally rejected, annulled, or rescinded, as Vatican officials have often said. However, he cited a later bull, Sublimis Deus, of 1537, which reaffirmed that indigenous peoples should not be deprived of their liberty or possession of their property, nor should they be enslaved.

It was significant that the rejection of the doctrine of discovery occurred during the tenure of the first pope in Latin American history. And Francisco, the Argentine, had already apologized before a trip to Canada with the indigenous people of Bolivia in 2015 for the crimes of the colonial conquest of the American continent. Thursday’s decision was made while the pope was being transported to hospital with a respiratory infection.

Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonca, prefect of the Vatican’s Cultural Office, said the statement reflected the Vatican’s dialogue with indigenous peoples.

“This observation is part of what we might call the architecture of reconciliation and it is also a product of the art of reconciliation, the process by which people commit to listening to the other, talking to the other and developing a common understanding,” he said in a statement.