Indigenous Wire

Share this post

The sad, surreal visit of an apologetic pope

www.indigenouswire.com

The sad, surreal visit of an apologetic pope

Canadian Indigenous peoples face a reckoning after being granted an audience with a major symbol of their oppression.

Rob Capriccioso
Jul 29, 2022
8
2
Share this post

The sad, surreal visit of an apologetic pope

www.indigenouswire.com
MASKWACIS, AB - JULY 25: Pope Francis wears a traditional headdress gifted to him by Indigenous leaders following his apology during a July 25, 2022 visit to Maskwacis, Canada. The pope is touring Canada, meeting with Indigenous communities and community leaders in an effort to reconcile the harmful legacy of the church's role in Canada's residential schools. (Photo by Cole Burston/Getty Images)

Pope Francis is scheduled this evening to complete his week-long Indigenous apology tour through Canada. He’s used his visit to offer seemingly heartfelt condolences to Indigenous peoples throughout Canada for portions of the Catholic Church’s role in their genocidal assimilation. (An update on the pope’s words re: genocide here.)

Indigenous peoples’ most progressive hope for his trip was that he would rescind the 1493 Papal Bull and related Doctrine of Discovery, which served as the historical Church-sanctioned policy rationale for destroying and subverting Native culture in the so-called New World. But he has not done that — and even the most idealistic of Indigenous advocates suspected he would not.

To do that would have undermined a foundational principle of Christian, colonial and capitalistic ideology, and few contemporary world systems seem prepared for the possible ramifications — financial, social, legal and otherwise.

A brief summary of the 1493 bull follows:

The Papal Bull "Inter Caetera," issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493, played a central role in the Spanish conquest of the New World. The document supported Spain’s strategy to ensure its exclusive right to the lands discovered by Columbus the previous year. It established a demarcation line one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands and assigned Spain the exclusive right to acquire territorial possessions and to trade in all lands west of that line. All others were forbidden to approach the lands west of the line without special license from the rulers of Spain. This effectively gave Spain a monopoly on the lands in the New World.

The Bull stated that any land not inhabited by Christians was available to be "discovered," claimed, and exploited by Christian rulers and declared that "the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself." This "Doctrine of Discovery" became the basis of all European claims in the Americas as well as the foundation for the United States’ western expansion. In the US Supreme Court in the 1823 case Johnson v. McIntosh, Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in the unanimous decision held "that the principle of discovery gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands." In essence, American Indians had only a right of occupancy, which could be abolished.

SAINTE-ANNE-DE-BEAUPRE, CANADA - JULY 28: Indigenous protesters hold up a sign in front of Pope Francis as he celebrates mass at the National Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre on July 28, 2022 in Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre, Canada. Pope Francis is traveling across Canada on a “pilgrimage of penance,” meeting with and apologizing to Indigenous communities for the abuse at Catholic-run residential schools, where more than 150,000 indigenous children were forcibly enrolled for over 100 years. Called a “cultural genocide” by the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the school system was created to isolate Indigenous children from their own native culture and religion in order to assimilate them into the dominant Christian culture. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

What the pope has done is apologize, repeatedly and profusely, to Church-run boarding school survivors and descendants, to Indigenous leaders and chiefs, and to thousands of tribal citizens who have gathered to see and speak with him. Along the way, he’s visited some of the graves and seen some of the names of Native children who died and were murdered in boarding school institutions. Sexual abuse is another sin for which he has taken responsibility.

MASKWACIS, AB - JULY 25 : A memorial banner bearing the names of children that died in Canada's residential school is being carried as Pope Francis visits Muskwa Park in Maskwacis, south of Edmonton, western Canada, on July 25, 2022. Pope Francis on Monday issued a long-awaited and historic apology to Indigenous peoples for the harm the Catholic Church did to them at Canada’s residential schools. (Photo by Lincoln Ho/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The pope has gone out of his way to label the historical atrocities as “evil perpetrated by some of [the Church’s] sons and daughters” while making less of an argument that this was an intentional, institutionalized abuse of power. He has at the same time highlighted the “charity” of the Church toward Indigenous peoples. He has not met with every Indigenous group that has wanted to speak with him; the Haudenosaunee have been particularly upset by that.

Anger, grief and sadness have been a big part of the Indigenous perspectives surrounding his pilgrimage. Some have felt betrayed by the shortcomings of his apology; some have felt sickened by his presence on their lands; some mourn deeply for their lost ancestors and ways of life. Some want more accountability, including information from Rome that could perhaps hold the Church accountable in courts of law. And some feel a jarring sense of unease after getting what so many had requested of the pope and of Christian leaders before him.

RELATED: Doug George-Kanentiio: 'We don't want an apology, we want justice'

Old wounds have been freshly opened, and this time on the world stage. Indigenous peoples, often forgotten in so many ways, are now magnified. Their plight has been sanctioned — and apologized for — by one of the most well-known world leaders.

Graves are seen in the municipal cemetery of Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada, July 28, 2022. - Pope Francis was to fly to Nunavut, the territory that covers most of the Canadian Arctic, Friday on his final stop in a landmark tour apologizing for the abuse of Indigenous children in Catholic-run schools. "They should be doing more by having counseling, wellness centers, recovery," said Iqaluit resident Israel Mablick, a 43-year-old survivor of one of the schools. (Photo by ANNE-SOPHIE THILL/AFP via Getty Images)

One particularly surreal moment came on Monday when Cree leaders chose to honor the pope with a headdress, which he wore while posing alongside several chiefs.

Many Indigenous peoples were left asking why tribal leaders would choose to honor the pope with a sacred gift when he is the living symbol of an ongoing system of assimilation and extreme abuse. Time and again throughout history, Natives have honored and worked with their oppressors in various ways, and to some this moment in the world spotlight was not the time for it to be happening again.

MASKWA PARK, ALBERTA, CANADA - July 28: Pope Francis dons the headdress presented to him during his journey of healing, reconciliation and hope. His first act was not to gather with the faithful for Mass, but rather to gather his strength to make this first stop, which signals the importance of why he has come to Canada - to encounter First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples on their traditional territories. (Photo by Ron Palmer/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Some Canadian Indigenous peoples, meanwhile, have said the headdress was an appropriate gift for Pope Francis in particular, given his contrite and polite tone during an historic time of seemingly genuine remorse and attempt at reconciliation.

An Indigenous woman cries as Catholic faithful listen to Pope Francis celebrate Mass inside the National Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Quebec, Canada, on July 28, 2022. - Pope Francis decried "ideological colonization" on July 27, and renewed his apology to Indigenous peoples for decades of abuse in a speech to Canada's top officials, who invited him to take further action leading to "real reconciliation." (Photo by LARS HAGBERG/AFP via Getty Images)

Ironically, as a result of the very abuses Pope Francis is apologizing for, many contemporary Indigenous people are Catholic and/or Christian, so there is an added layer of cognitive dissonance. Many Natives devoutly believe in Christianity, yet it was in the name of Christianity that their ancestors were assimilated and murdered and that their cultures and lands were forever altered. To say the least, this is not an easy feeling to reconcile.

Questions abound: Will the papal bull ever be rescinded? If so, what will that mean? Will the pope make a similar visit to the U.S. and to Latin America, which both experienced similar atrocities to the Indigenous peoples of Canada? Will anything really change as a result of this sorry snapshot?

Along with the sadness and confusion, feelings of hope for a better future were alive and well, too, during the pope’s journey.

Indigenous children, parents and grandparents came together to shape what they hope will be a whole new world.

QUEBEC, CANADA - JULY 27: (L-R) Jasmine Nutseniu Ishkuess, her brother Jay Launiere-Methias, their grandmother Therese Telesh Begin and their mother Sandra Launiere embrace after completing a 170-mile march from their Mashteuiatsh reserve to Quebec, coinciding with the visit by Pope Francis on the Plains of Abraham, on July 27, 2022 in Quebec, Canada. Launiere-Methias organized the march with the Puamun Meshkenu organization to honor his grandmother and other survivors of Catholic-run residential school . (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

QUEBEC, CANADA - JULY 27: One-year-old Yonnan Flamand is lifted into the air by his father Alland Flamand of Manawan as Pope Francis delivers remarks at the Citadelle of Quebec on the Plains of Abraham on July 27, 2022 in Quebec, Canada. Pope Francis is traveling across Canada for a “pilgrimage of penance,” to meet with and apologize to Indigenous communities for the abuse at Catholic-run residential schools. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Happy Friday, Wiredians.

Indigenous Wire is a Native-owned, reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

2
Share this post

The sad, surreal visit of an apologetic pope

www.indigenouswire.com
2 Comments
Jay Winter-Nightwolf
Jul 29, 2022Liked by Rob Capriccioso

This whole experience of this Pope visiting Canada and attempting to make amends is a crock of BS and the world knows it. The head dress is earned by warriors, not white men representing the murders of thousands of indigenous defenseless children. Damn this Pope and the Papal Bulls that has murdered millions of our people, destroyed our languages, broken families and the list goes down the streets and around the corner for miles. F__k the Pope and the racist regime of the Roman Catholic Church. This white man and the church he represents are both full of S__T!

Expand full comment
Reply
1 reply by Rob Capriccioso
1 more comment…
TopNewCommunity

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 IndigenousWIRE, LLC
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing