“RESCIND THE DOCTRINE.” These were the words written in daring red and black letters across a white banner that stretched across the front of the sanctuary of the Basilica of St. Anne de Beaupré in Quebec moments before Pope Francis presided at Mass there. It was the second Mass of his visit to Indigenous Peoples in Canada to apologize for the deplorable abuses committed over greater than a century in residential schools under the Catholic Church’s watch.
This daring demonstration, which was televised and broadcast around the globe, sharpens the demands for Pope Francis to make a public statement in Canada that might rescind what’s referred to as the “doctrine of discovery.” Now, the seeming absence of any mention of the doctrine within the pope’s days in Canada could threaten a number of the good will, reconciliation and healing brought by this momentous time within the Vatican’s relations with Indigenous People.
Many Indigenous Peoples in Canada appear to have received well the apology made by Pope Francis on the primary day of his pilgrimage of penance of their lands. But because the apology—and the applause and shouts expressed each of the 4 times the pope said “I’m sorry” in his speech on that day—begins to settle, Indigenous communities are finding space to reflect on that historic moment and digest its contents. Some at the moment are asking what continues to be left for the pope to say before he returns to the Vatican. And with which have come louder, more visible—even indignant—demands for Francis to sentence these instructions given by two popes in three letters to the kings of Portugal and Spain in the course of the Imperial Age that make up the so-called doctrine of discovery. The legacy of those papal edicts has had a devastating historic impact on Indigenous communities; they’ve attacked Indigenous traditions and practices and threatened even legal claims to what Indigenous Peoples imagine are their rightful lands.
Why is it so essential for the pope to make a public pronouncement to rescind this doctrine? In truth, some would argue it has already been rescinded by the church. Has it?
But why is it so essential for the pope to make a public pronouncement to rescind this doctrine? In truth, some would argue it has already been rescinded by the church. Has it? Is that enough? Before we explore these questions, we’d like to do some stage setting.
What’s the doctrine of discovery?
The doctrine of discovery is a somewhat misleading blanket term adopted to consult with what were essentially a series of public decrees—referred to as papal bulls—that were written by the popes of the Fifteenth century to the Catholic kings of Spain and Portugal granting them permission to colonize non-Christian lands and enslave the non-Christians present in these lands that were deemed undiscovered by the Christian world.
There have been three papal bulls of discovery issued to this end: Pope Nicholas V first wrote “Dum Diversas” to the king of Portugal in 1452. Inside lower than three years, he would issue an analogous decree, “Romanus Pontifex,” to the king of Spain. It will be almost 4 many years before Pope Alexander VI wrote “Inter Caetera” in 1493, which is the papal bull most frequently cited when referring to the doctrine. It preserves most of the directives contained in preceding papal bulls and further amplifies the scope of what the pope allowed kings to do under the blessing and authority of the Catholic Church within the church’s quest to evangelize.
With these letters, the popes granted to kings and people of their empires certain permissions, amongst these the rights to overcome the lands of Indigenous Peoples where Christianity had not taken root, to convert the Indigenous Peoples there to the Roman Catholic faith and to enslave Indigenous Peoples. These documents of papal authority not only gave kings tacit consent to dominate Indigenous Peoples and their lands, but additionally they grounded such pursuits in a Christian, even specifically Catholic sense of mission and divine obedience to God. “That in our times, especially the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be in every single place increased and spread,” Alexander VI wrote in his bull granting Spain possession of lands discovered by Christopher Columbus. The pope argued further that the pursuits of Spain were justified “that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and delivered to the religion itself.”
The popes granted to kings and people of their empires certain permissions, amongst these the rights to overcome the lands of Indigenous Peoples where Christianity had not taken root.
From this temporary exposition of a number of the contents of the papal bulls it is obvious why Indigenous communities would call for such instructions to be repealed by Pope Francis. The Catholic Church’s theological view of the world and the respect it has for a diversity of beliefs has clearly shifted. Today, the church is more inclined to value and have fun the experiences and gifts that other religious traditions can bring into the world, as Pope Francis’ visit to Canada and his willingness to partake in essential cultural rituals repeatedly revealed.
Still, while the pope and the Vatican have moved beyond a mentality that saw Indigenous Peoples and people who weren’t Christian as inferior to white, European Christians, the decision to revoke the doctrine of discovery stays—not least due to its impact on property laws.
The doctrine of discovery and the U.S. Supreme Court
While the doctrine of discovery could be considered obsolete by some, it has implications today for Indigenous communities, notably in the best way that it has been utilized by justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to disclaim Indigenous Peoples’ land petitions.
The doctrine was first utilized in a 1823 U.S. Supreme Court case. In Johnson v. McIntosh—the primary of three landmark cases in Indian law in america—the court ruled that while the Piankeshaw and Illinois Indians, two Native American communities, were inside their right to occupy, settle and govern parcels of land within the Ohio River valley, that they had no claim to land ownership. Following the logic of the doctrine of discovery, the land belonged to those that discovered it and due to this fact the federal government rightly owned the land.
The doctrine of discovery has been applied in lots of other cases and used internationally to legitimize governments’ ownership of land. As late as 2005, in Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also argued against an Indigenous community’s claim to their land on the premise of the doctrine. In each of those cases, the particulars are complicated. Their inclusion here is just not intended as a debate over the rightness of the judgment but slightly to point out how a so-called doctrine established in three letters by Fifteenth-century popes has come to bear on secular laws and affect Indigenous communities.
Recent calls to rescind the doctrine of discovery
In late March, when the delegations of First Nations, Métis and Inuit Peoples heard the pope’s historic first apology for the church’s participation within the Canadian government-mandated residential education system, some members of the delegation said they told the pope that an apology on Indigenous soils in Canada needed to incorporate a call to repeal the doctrine of discovery.
But on Monday July 25, 2022, when the pope offered essentially the most comprehensive apology yet because the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church for abuses in Canada, there was no explicit mention of that doctrine.
When the pope offered essentially the most comprehensive apology yet because the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church for abuses in Canada, there was no explicit mention of that doctrine.
And this was not the primary time that Indigenous People had met with the pope on the Vatican to debate the doctrine. In the primary 12 months of Francis’ papacy, a delegation of Indigenous People, who called themselves “The Long March to Rome,” met briefly with the pope on May 4, 2015—the anniversary of one among the papal bulls—to demand that he repeal the doctrine. “They were the ‘blueprint,’” the delegation said in a press release, “for conquest of the Latest World; they provided moral justification for the enslavement and conquest of Indigenous peoples worldwide; they’re an ongoing violation of up to date human rights laws; and other communities currently struggling to avoid wasting their lands are threatened by modern-day ideologies of inequality anchored within the papal bulls.”
The delegation reported then that the pope had appeared attentive to their calls but said little else. “The pope was very kind,” Kenneth Deer of the Mohawk Nation at Kahnawake reported. “He kept eye contact and he was very attentive. And all he said was ‘I’ll pray for you.’ That’s the one thing he said. And he gave me just a little red box with a set of rosaries in it. And that was it.”
But, despite no assurances from the pope, Mr. Deer said he still left the Vatican with some hope that the Vatican would speak out against the doctrine after he received a transparent acknowledgment by a Vatican official that the doctrine was devastating and that something needed to be done about it.
After their temporary meeting with the pope, the delegation met for an extended time with members of the then Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Mr. Deer remembered an exchange with Cardinal Silvano Tomasi, who on the time was the secretary of the council.
“He began giving the standard spiel that the papal bulls aren’t any longer in effect, that they’ve been superseded by other papal bulls and there was no need for us to do anything,” Mr. Deer said, reporting the meeting to APTN. But as they neared the top of the meeting, Mr. Deer said: “[Cardinal Tomasi] was changing his position. At the top he said, ‘Perhaps the Vatican does must make a press release. Now we have to think about making a press release.’”
Though the Vatican has still not made a press release concerning the doctrine, there are Catholic bishops calling for the church to acknowledge the harm that these ancient papal pronouncements have done and the church’s must apologize and distance itself from it.
Though the Vatican has still not made a press release concerning the doctrine there are Catholic bishops calling for the church to acknowledge the harm that these ancient papal pronouncements have done.
“This particular doctrine has been used to justify each political and private violence against Indigenous nations, Indigenous peoples and their culture—their religious and their territorial identities,” Bishop Douglas J. Lucia of Syracuse, N.Y., told Religion News Service in 2021. “Since they were papal bulls at first,” the bishop said, there must be an effort to repudiate the doctrine and, he added, “a public acknowledgment from the Holy Father of the harm these bulls have done to the Indigenous population.”
Consecrated religious women have also joined calls for repudiation of the doctrine. In 2014, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious explicitly called on the pope to rescind the doctrine of discovery, asking him “to think about deeply how the Church may embody in these times the Christian heart of justice and compassion toward indigenous peoples” in a press release. “We humbly and respectfully ask Pope Francis to steer us in formally repudiating the period of Christian history that used religion to justify political and private violence against indigenous nations and peoples and their cultural, religious, and territorial identities.”
Catholic organizations aside, calls for the doctrine to be repealed have also come from throughout the United Nations. In 2013, The United Nations Everlasting Forum on Indigenous Issues called “on the Catholic Church to openly denounce the centuries-old ‘Doctrine of Discovery,’” which it acknowledged to be the “shameful root of all of the discrimination and marginalization indigenous peoples faced today.”
Public appeals for a proper end to the doctrine have also come from throughout the wider Christian churches and community, amongst them the Episcopal Church, the Mennonite Church, the United Methodist Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. In May this 12 months, when the Archbishop of Canterbury, the top of the worldwide Anglican communion, visited Saskatchewan, he asked the group, “How can we dismantle the doctrine of discovery in a way so it may possibly never be used again?”
Latest developments on the Vatican
Per week before the pope traveled to Canada, the Vatican ignited latest hope that the pope might say something concerning the doctrine on his visit to Canada.
“A mirrored image is underway within the Holy See on the doctrine of discovery,” Matteo Bruni, the director of the Vatican press office, said at a press briefing to the media just days before the Canada visit. Mr. Bruni added that though the reflection was “nearing the top of its conclusion,” it may not be concluded by the point of the pope’s visit to Canada and that he couldn’t confirm whether the pope would say anything specific to the doctrine upon arrival in Canada. But, he added, “there ‘might’ be a development on this theme” after the papal trip.
So when no mention of the doctrine was made in the course of the pope’s first apology in Canada, despite the glimpses of hope that Mr. Bruni offered, some Indigenous People were left wanting.
“Repudiate the doctrine of discovery! Surrender the papal bulls! End genocide!” This was the message that Chief Judy Wilson of the Neskonlith Tribe, whose father attended the residential schools run by the Catholic Church, shouted while the pope delivered his first apology in Canada. “I still haven’t heard anything about repudiating the doctrine of discovery,” Chief Wilson later told CBC News, “which is where a whole lot of the genocide laws policy, you understand, the Indian Act, the residential schools, the creation of the reserves all stem from.”
Whether Pope Francis will explicitly address the doctrine within the hours he has left in Canada or whether he’ll offer any light on the continued reflection on the Vatican during his customary press briefing on the return flight to Rome—as has often been the case together with his mid-air papal press conferences—stays to be seen.