In his new 2023 book The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future (Simon & Schuster), the American religion scholar Robert P. Jones successfully integrates his enlightening discussion of the Doctrine of Discovery throughout his text. Pope Francis could learn a lot about the Doctrine of Discovery from Jones' new 2023 book. I did.

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) September 15, 2023: Arguably the most important journey literature in Western cultural history includes the ancient Homeric epic account of Odysseus' journey around the Mediterranean and the underworld, the Odyssey; and Virgil's ancient derivative epic account of Aeneas' journey around the Mediterranean and the underworld; and Dante's medieval account of Dante-the-character and Virgil's colorful walking journey through the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso, The Divine Comedy; and James Joyce's twentieth-century modernist account of certain characters walking journey around Dublin one day, Ulysses.

Against this Western cultural backdrop of portrayals of different kinds of journeys, it strikes me that the white American Baptist religion scholar Robert P. Jones is constructing his own personal journey narrative ("my reeducation journey" [2023, p. 18]) through his three most recent books, all published by Simon & Schuster:

(1) The End of White Christian America (2016);

(2) White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity (2021);

(3) The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future (2023).

Make no mistake about it, Jones' new 2023 book is designed to be a sharper entry in our current culture wars in the United States today than even his 2016 and 2021 books were. Consequently, I hope that Jones' new 2023 book becomes a blockbuster best-seller.

The word White appears in all three titles of Jones' most recent books. Jones appears to be excruciatingly self-conscious about being white -- not that this is the only thing about his life that he appears to be excruciatingly self-conscious. In Dante's Divine Comedy, Dante-the-character is Dante-the author's self-conscious construction of himself - or, perhaps more accurately, of his excruciatingly self-conscious, and at times humorous, self-deprecating portrayal of Dante-the-character, whose reeducation journey through the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso includes his being humbly instructed along the way by Virgil and then by Beatrice.

In any event, Jones' new 2023 book features five blurbs about it on the back cover of the dust jacket and seven more blurbs about it on the unnumbered pages in the book before the title page.

In Jones' noble subsection "Confession and Call: A Word to My Fellow White Christians" in Chapter Eleven: "Discovery and Democracy" in his new 2023 book (pp. 304-310), he uses italicized print for emphasis over three pages (pp. 304-306). As this subsection shows, he tends to see white Christians in the United States today as his fictional audience that he is addressing in his noble new 2023 book.

However, even though I see Jones' new 2023 book as a noble effort of his part to address his fellow white Christians in the United States today, I am not as sure as he seems to be about what exactly might bring about healing Pope Francis and Vatican officials (p. 278) -- and others, including Jones' fellow white Christians in the United States today.

In Jones' "Acknowledgments" in his new 2023 book (pp. 311-315), he says, "The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy, my fifth book, is a continuation of my journey to navigate the tumultuous currents of racial reckoning in America and to discern the possible courses we might chart toward a more inclusive future" (p. 311).

In Jones' "Prologue: Before America" in his new 2023 book (pp. 1-27), he includes a subsection titled "From 1619 to 1493: The Christian Doctrine of Discovery" (pp. 13-23). In it, he says, "I concede that, on its face, the claim the edicts by European popes and kings in the fifteenth century are vital for understanding our current [American] divides may seem strained. Indeed, to my knowledge, no mainstream American history textbooks have focused on the Doctrine of Discovery as critical for American self-understanding. Across my decades of graduate education in the 1990s, completing a seminary graduate degree [of M.Div. at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary] and a Ph.D. in religion [at Emory University], I never encountered the Doctrine of Discovery" (p. 17).

Full disclosure: Neither did I in the course of my studies.

Nevertheless, Jones now argues that a critical understanding of the Doctrine of Discovery is "critical for American self-understanding."

Jones, says, "The Doctrine of Discovery merged the interests of European imperialism, including the African slave trade, with Christian missionary zeal. [The papal bull in Latin] Dum Diversas, the initial edict that laid the theological and political foundations for the Doctrine [of Discovery], was issued by Pope Nicholas V on June 18, 1452" (p. 15).

Subsequently, Jones says, "The most relevant papal edict for the American context was the bull Inter Caetera, issued by Pope Alexander VI in May 1493 with the express purpose of validating Spain's ownership rights of previously 'undiscovered' lands in the Americas following the voyages of Columbus the year before" (p. 16).

According to Jones, "The white male leaders of the thirteen British colonies began their 1776 Declaration of Independence from the British Crown with these inspirational words: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.' But just thirty lines down - in this document marking the year Trump and many conservatives want to hold up as exemplary of the nation's character at its origin - the Doctrine of discovery rears its head. The British colonists complain that King George III has encouraged slave rebellions ['domestic insurrections amongst us') and [the white male leaders] speak of Native Americans as 'merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and condition'" (p. 19).

According to Jones, "the 1789 U.S. Constitution, which opens with the inclusive words 'We the people,' is, rightly, understood as a watershed moment in the history of democracy and self-government. But its first article - just four sentences into the document - runs aground on the legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery. Article I, Section 2 clarifies that the real 'we' constituting 'the people' are European men" (p. 19).

According to Jones, "The Doctrine of discovery also guided Thomas Jefferson - a lawyer trained in legal tradition built on its logic - in his approach to the 1803 Louisiana Purchase" (p. 20).

According to Jones, "The Doctrine of Discovery was formally incorporated into U.S. law in 1823 in Johnson v. M'Intosh, which held, by unanimous decision, that 'discovery gave [the U.S. government] an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or conquest.' In a sprawling thirty-three-page opinion penned by chief Justice john Marshall, the court grounded its argument explicitly in the narrative of the Doctrine of discovery" (p. 20).

According to Jones, "Johnson v. M'Intosh, rooted deeply in the Doctrine of Discovery, set the legal standard for how the U.S. would deal with the native American population, and actively shapes both U.S. and international law today" (p. 21).

In the "Index" in Jones' new 2023 book (pp. 375-387), Doctrine of Discovery appears as a main entry (pp. 377-388) - and as a sub-entry under several main entries: under Christianity (p. 376), churches (p. 376), Confederacy (p. 377), Indigenous people (p. 379), and Roman Catholic Church (p. 383). Clearly Jones has carefully integrated the Doctrine of Discovery into his new 2023 book. In addition, Jones includes an "Appendix: Recommended Reading Related to the Doctrine of Discovery" (pp. 117-318), where he says, "for primary source documents (and English translations) related to the Doctrine of Discovery, see the website maintained by the Indigenous Values Initiative: https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/" (p. 318).

On p. 343n.34, Jones says, "English translations of each of the three major papal bulls that established the Doctrine of Discovery can be found at a site maintained by the Indigenous Values Initiative and the American Indian Law Alliance: Click Here.

For further information about the Doctrine of Discovery, also see the Wikipedia entry about it:

Click Here

The Wikipedia entry provides a wee bit more specific information about the papal bulls that established the Doctrine of Discovery than Jones does.

The "Index" in Jones' new 2023 book also includes main entries to several presidents of the United States: Biden, Joe (p. 375); Bush, George H. W. (p. 375); Nixon, Richard (p. 382); Obama, Barack (p. 382); and Trump, Donald (p. 385). Just as Jones has integrated his theme of the Doctrine of Discovery throughout the text of his new 2023 book, so too he has integrated his discussion to the white former president Donald Trump throughout the text of his book (pp. 5, 6, 8, 10, 19, 265-266, 280, 293, 296, and 299-300).

In Jones' subsection "America's Identity Crisis" in his "Prologue: Before America" in his new 2023 book (pp. 4-6), he clearly identifies Trump as his sparring partner in his overall critique of his fellow white Christians in the United States.

Incidentally, just as Jones uses the word Before in the title "Prologue: Before America," so too he uses the word Before in certain chapter titles as well: Chapter 1: "Before Mississippi" (pp. 31-57); Chapter 4: "Before Minnesota" (pp. 117-141); and Chapter 7: "Before Oklahoma" (pp. 183-211).

In Jones' Chapter 4: "Before Minnesota," he says, "According to archeological evidence, the first Indigenous people arrived in this area about twelve thousand years ago, hunting large game, including mastodons at the end of the ice age, As the weather warmed around 7,000 BCE, Indigenous people enjoyed more plentiful foods and hunted a wide variety of game with weapons tipped with stones and copper mined in the Great Lakes area. Approximately 2,500 years ago, the Woodland mound-building cultures emerged, which were characterized by established village sites, the creation of pottery, and agricultural production of corn, squash, and beans" (p. 118).

For a somewhat related discussion of Minnesota, see my OEN article "American Indian Hunter-Gatherer-Foragers of Minnesota" (dated November 27, 2022):

Click Here

Now, in addition to discussing Pope Nicholas V and Pope Alexander VI in connection with the Doctrine of Discovery, Jones discusses Pope Francis in connection with the Doctrine of Discovery.

As everyone who follows the news knows, wherever Pope Francis journeys in the world, he is accompanied by a contingent of journalists who report his words and actions to the world. Of course, the same journalists also cover him when he is at home -- and they also cover the Vatican.

In Jones' subsection "The Penitential Pilgrimage Tour of Pope Francis" in Chapter Ten: "The Search for Hope in History" in his new 2023 book The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future (pp. 272-278), he says, "On July 25, 2022, Pope Francis arrived in Maskwacis, Alberta, Canada, at the former site of a Catholic-run boarding school for Indigenous children, to deliver an apology as part of his five-day 'penitential pilgrimage' of Indigenous sites in Canada. The apology was long overdue, coming fully seven years after a Canadian 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' determined that the conduct of the schools was tantamount to 'cultural genocide' and formally requested an apology from the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, the pope's effort was sincere" (p. 272).

After quoting Pope Francis' address at length, Jones then says, "This penitential tour was a remarkable action by the head of the roman Catholic Church, one without precedent in the Americas. Pope Francis was visibly emotional. Many members of the crowd of several thousand Indigenous people gathered wiped away tears and hugged each other as they listened to the apology. Afterward, a photographer captured an image of Pope Francis kneeling to kiss the hand of an Indigenous woman. Local Indigenous leaders placed a headdress on Francis' head" (p. 273).

Jones also says, "But a close look at the apology reveals the insidious power that the doctrine of Discovery still holds over even authentic efforts by church leaders with integrity and sincere intentions. Most significantly, Pope Francis [who demonstrated on his plane trip back to Rome that he is not well versed in the Doctrine of discovery or the three major papal bulls that established it] places responsibility for the evil on 'many Christians' [who ran schools in Canada], 'many members of the Church and of religious communities,' and the church's 'children.' But the church itself escapes indictment [for the schools in Canada]. In fact, in each instance, Francis attempts to make an untenable distinction between misguided Christians [in the schools in Canada] and a church whose virtue remains unblemished [by the schools in Canda]. This disingenuous line of reasoning implies that if Christians are at fault [in the schools in Canada], it is because they stopped following the church's pure teachings and became misled by various external forces: 'the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the Indigenous Peoples' or 'the projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time'" (pp. 273-274).

Next, Jones says, "Francis's most jarring claim was this: 'What our Christian faith tells us is that this was a disastrous error, incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.' This conjuring of an abstract 'Gospel of Jesus Christ' by the head of the Roman Catholic Church, whose direct predecessors (Pope Nicholas V and Pope Alexander VI] created the Doctrine of Discovery in collusion with the Christian monarchs of their day, is literally nonsensical in light of the clear historical record. The entire purpose of the papal bulls of the fifteenth century - their very raison d'etre - was to use papal authority to establish and declare, to the entire Christian world, their verdict that the domination and enslavement of Indigenous peoples were in fact demanded by the gospel and therefore had the moral blessing of the Christian church" (p. 274).

At this point in Jones' text, I wish that he had stopped himself and added salient quotations in English translation from the three major papal bulls in Latin that established the Doctrine of Discovery. But, alas, Jones does not quote the three major papal bulls.

As to Pope Francis, I wish that he would undertake a close study of the three major papal bulls that established the Doctrine of Discovery.

As Jones notes, "On March 30, 2023, the Vatican finally issued a statement repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery" (p. 275). However, when he scrutinizes the Vatican repudiation, he finds the same kind of slippery rhetoric in it that he found in Pope Francis' address in Canada (pp. 276-278).

I have profiled the doctrinally conservative Pope Francis in my OEN article "Pope Francis on Evil and Satan" (dated March 24, 2019):

Click Here

Even though Pope Francis is decidedly conservative doctrinally, he has met with vociferous resistance from certain outspoken conservative American Catholics. See Massimo Borghesi's book Catholic Discordance: Neoconservatism vs. the Field Hospital Church of Pope Francis, translated by Barry Hudock (Liturgical Press Academic, 2021; orig. Italian ed., 2021).

I have also discussed the Argentinian pope's 2020 apostolic exhortation Querida Amazonia ("Beloved Amazon") in my 4,000-word review essay "Pope Francis' 2020 Apostolic Exhortation, and Walter J. Ong's Thought" that is available online through the University of Minnesota's digital conservancy:

https://hdl.handle.net/11299/211640

By way of digression, I would like to note here that both Pope Francis (born in 1936) and Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) belonged to the Roman Catholic religious order of men known as the Jesuit order (known formally as the Society of Jesus). The order was founded by the Spanish Renaissance mystic St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) and some of his younger colleagues. Some early Jesuits were missionaries to far-away places such as India and China. For further discussion of early Jesuit missionaries, see the late American Jesuit church historian John O'Malley's book The First Jesuits (Harvard University Press, 1993).

In conclusion, Jones says, "For repentance to be authentic, sinful acts must attach to the proper subject [perpetrating them]. As the head of the Roman Catholic Church, the body that originally produced and promulgated an interpretation of the gospel of Jesus Christ that underwrote colonial violence, it is vital that the pope acknowledge the sins and errors of the church itself. Otherwise, the entire exercise is premised on a rhetorical sleight of hand. By defending the purity of the church, even while acknowledging the damage 'many Christians' did in the past, Pope Francis and church leaders [in the Vatican] are squandering the opportunity for healing to fully take root" (p. 278).

Because Pope Francis is famous for scolding various other people (usually groups of people, not specifically named individual people), I enjoyed Jones' righteous indignation in scolding the aging pope - and the unnamed Vatican authors of the 2023 Vatican document repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery.

In conclusion, I wish that Jones had explained a wee bit more about specific papal bulls that established the Doctrine of Discovery than he does. I learned a wee bit more about them from the Wikipedia entry on the Doctrine of Discovery than I did from Jones. However, I do appreciate the references he provides for the website of the Indigenous Values Project and to the relevant books he lists.

However, overall, I agree with the astute overall assessment of Jones' new 2023 book that the Very Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, interim president of Episcopal Divinity School is quoted as offering us in the unnumbered pages of the book before the title page: "'The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy is timely, if not timeless. Robert P. Jones invites us to journey with him to Mississippi, Minnesota, and Oklahoma, daring to listen, learn, and be transformed by the communities he encounters. Hidden Roots is about the hidden stories of Black and Indigenous peoples who, in navigating the violent legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, have charted a course toward a more just future. In this book we discover that the very stories we hide from are the ones that can bring America closer to becoming the democracy it claims to be.'"

(Article changed on Sep 16, 2023 at 10:47 AM EDT)

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview