Thread by @PaulusAracnea

«The “doctrine of discovery” is not part of the teaching of the Catholic Church».
True, it isn't today.
«Historical research clearly demonstrates that the papal documents in question..have NEVER been considered expressions of the Catholic faith».
Well.. 1/
press.vatican.va/content/salast…

The tricky point is precisely the focus on the "Catholic faith". Historians have never claimed that those Bulls had a dogmatic value: they didn't teach doctrines one had to believe so as to obtain salvation. Their value was legal: sources of international law for Christianity. 2/

There is a vast historiography on how the Holy See justified the Iberian colonial empires. For the Portuguese case, see Giuseppe Marcocci, A consciência de um Império: Portugal e o seu mundo (Sécs. XV - XVIII), (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 2012). 3/
books.google.com/books?id=hTi5C…

In 2011 Marcocci published a shorter Italian version of that very interesting monograph. I had the pleasure of reviewing it:
academia.edu/4089582/

4/

I find quite ironical the enthusiasm with which some scholars have welcomed today's statement. They seem not to realise that, by denying any Catholic involvement with the #DoctrineofDiscovery, no apology and acceptance of responsibility is actually offered to the First Nations 5/

«The Church is also aware that the contents of these documents were MANIPULATED for political purposes by competing colonial powers in order to justify immoral acts against indigenous peoples that were carried out, at times, without opposition from ecclesiastical authorities» 6/

What we see here is basically an opposition between "evil colonial powers" vs "innocent, slightly naive Catholic Church, being duped so as to grant Bulls". This makes no sense in historiographical terms and simply projects today's sensitivity unto the past. 7/

The statement mentions also #slavery. Here too we have a huge historiography and the selective quotation of "Sublimis Deus" (1537), almost suggesting that the Holy See fought against the enslavement of all natives, risks of being misleading. 8/

On the nuances in the Catholic justifications of #slavery, see recently José Lingna Nafafé, "Lourenço Da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century" (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2022): 111. 9/

To conclude, the requests made by the First Nations to @Pontifex to disavow officially the #DoctrineofDiscovery were totally justified and deserved a very careful consideration. An ideal response could have followed a successful model dating back to a quarter of century ago. /10

The Great Jubilee of 2000 included a Day of Pardon (12 March), preceded by the publication of a document of the International Theological Commission, entitled: "Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past". /11

vatican.va/roman_curia/co…

In preparation to Jubilee of 2000, the Holy See gave a great impetus to the scholarly research on the Inquisition, one of the most famous instances of violence perpetrated by the Catholic Church. In 1998 the archives of the former Roman Inquisition were opened to all scholars./12

On that occasion, an international conference with leading experts of all Inquisitions (Roman, Spanish, Portuguese, Medieval) took place in the Vatican, leading eventually to a 788-page long volume of erudite and thought-provoking proceedings. /13

Just like the Inquisition, even the responsibility of the Catholic Church in the development of the #DoctrineofDiscovery could have been tackled with a research effort, as the one promoted in the late 1990s by Saint John Paul II, assisted by the then Cardinal Josef Ratzinger. /14

The best way for the Catholic Church to respond to the grievances of the First Nations concerning the #DoctrineofDiscovery is to promote further research, gain self-awareness, take responsibility and apologise wholeheartedly. An imprecise statement doesn't help. /15 & END.

@threadreaderapp plus unroll!