The Columbus legacy of 2007 is that these indigenous peoples in all of the Americas are the poorest, most powerless, disenfranchised and alienated from and in society. They have been stripped of their traditional ways of life, are excluded from society, ridiculed and discriminated against, and wage a daily battle for survival. This is the end result of Columbus’ “discovery” and the civilizing consequences of that encounter that the Roman Catholic Church blessed and enthusiastically embraced.
And the Pope’s statement belittles the history and culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas by suggesting that “they were waiting for” some Eurocentric notion of religion that was superior to their own. That is blatantly racist and obliquely embraces the continued genocide of the indigenous peoples that started since the European colonizers arrived at the time of Christopher Columbus. Popes, priests and friars actively engaged in partnership with this rapacious rabble in a collaborative venture that saw the Roman Catholic Church grow rich in the rivers of Indian blood shed in the name of God and King. The Roman Catholic Church cannot today divorce itself from the numerous amounts of genocide that it not only sanctioned, but aided and actively abetted.
It is an undisputed fact that the Roman Catholic Church joined with local governments who used their armies to kill indigenous peoples struggling for freedom, fairness and equality. The Church used the state to carry out its nefarious and greedy plots to amass more and more riches and property while using a religion of pacifism to keep “the natives in their place.” The Church preached a doctrine of “rewards in heaven” while stealing Indian lands, gold, wealth and possessions.
But by far the most serious implication of the Pope’s comments is the fact that he would have sane and lucid people believe that the deliberate decimation of native peoples by the actions of Columbus and other bands of brigands and the Church’s role in all this amounted to some warped pre-ordained purification ritual that made the indigenous peoples better off, blessed Christians, and therefore nearer to God and white people. That, in my view, is not only racist but patently offensive.
Maybe it’s the DNA thing.
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