“Vatican rejects Discovery Doctrine”, ICT News, March 30, 2023:
“The Vatican on Thursday responded to Indigenous demands and formally repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery,” the theories backed by 15th-century “papal bulls” that legitimized the colonial-era seizure of Native lands and form the basis of some property laws today.
A Vatican statement said the papal bulls, or decrees, “did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples” and have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith.
The statement, from the Vatican’s development and education offices, marked a historic recognition of the Vatican’s own complicity in colonial-era abuses committed by European powers and was issued as history’s first Latin American pontiff, who has made remarkable apologies to Native peoples, was hospitalized with a respiratory infection….”
Read the full article at Ictnews.org
