The position of the Catholic Church has long been radically critical of all forms of colonialism. In her magisterium, we find ancient and authoritative attestations affirming the dignity of indigenous peoples.  

Newsroom (1/08/2022 12:17 PM Gaudium Press) At the beginning of the Mass at St Anne de Beaupre on July 28, 2022, some people unfurled a banner that said, “Rescind the Doctrine of Discovery.” The banner was quickly taken down by the individuals holding it. While it did not disrupt the ceremony, the act is indicative of the still-tenuous relationship between the Catholic Church and First Nations in Canada.

First of all, who and how many are the indigenous peoples in Canada?

Today we speak of three distinct indigenous peoples. Initially, there were the First Nations, which included the groups or bands that were present in these lands before the arrival of the Europeans. The term “First Nations” must be read with the “successive” groups – French and English – for whom equal dignity is claimed. Today there are 634 groups with about 50 different languages. In 2016, nearly one million people were counted among the First Nations (precisely 977,230).

Then there is the Métis (“mestizos”) group, born from the encounter between indigenous people and Europeans; 587,545 people were counted in 2016. Canada is the only country where such a group is recognized with its specific identity.

The third component is that of the Inuit, the people of the northernmost lands, the Arctic lands. In the past, they were commonly referred to as “Eskimos,” and they numbered 65,025 in 2016. According to the 2016 census, they were 4.3 percent of Canada’s total population, but the number was soaring, having grown by 39 percent since 2006.

Each of these three components now has its own assemblies or representative bodies with its own authorities.

The origin of the problems that have emerged ever more clearly in recent decades – on a national level and with international echoes – goes back to the time of the “discovery” of the American continent by Europeans and the process of its progressive colonization by the powers of the time: Spain and Portugal in the Central and South Americas, France and England in the North.

“Doctrine of Discovery”

The position of the Catholic Church has long been radically critical of all forms of colonialism. In her magisterium, we find ancient and authoritative attestations affirming the dignity of indigenous peoples, beginning with the famous ones of Pope Paul III in the Bull Sublimis Deus of 1537: “We define and declare that the aforesaid Indians and all other peoples who may hereafter be discovered by Christians, are in no wise to be deprived of their liberty and the possession of their goods, even though they have not the faith of Jesus Christ. They may and ought, freely and lawfully, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their goods. They are not in any way to be reduced to slavery.” This Doctrine has subsequently been repeatedly reaffirmed with authority by the popes, up to and including Pope Francis.

Sicut Dudum Against the Enslaving of Black Natives from the Canary Islands

Pope Eugene IV – 1435 “They have deprived the natives of the property, or turned it to their own use, and have subjected some of the inhabitants of said islands to perpetual slavery, sold them to other persons, and committed other various illicit and evil deeds against them. …. Therefore, We rebuke each sinner about his sin, and not wishing to pass by dissimulating, and desiring—as is expected from the pastoral office we hold—as far as possible, to provide salutarily, with a holy and fatherly concern, for the sufferings of the inhabitants, beseech the Lord, and exhort, through the sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ shed for their sins, one and all, temporal princes, lords, captains, armed men, barons, soldiers, nobles, communities, and all others of every kind among the Christian faithful of whatever state, grade, or condition, that they themselves desist from the aforementioned deeds, cause those subject to them to desist from them, and restrain them rigorously.”

However, there had previously been statements – the debates, reference to some Papal Bulls of the end of the 15th century and the principle embodied in terra nullius (“no man’s land”) – used to justify the appropriation of lands in particular by “Catholic” powers, in the light of the intertwining interests of evangelization and colonization. Documents like Inter Caetera Division of the undiscovered world between Spain and Portugal, Pope Alexander VI – 1493. Romanus Pontifex

(Granting the Portuguese a perpetual monopoly in trade with Africa) Pope Nicholas V, January 8, 1455, This bull became the basis for Portugal’s later claim to lands in the “new world,” a claim countered by the bull Inter caetera in 1493.

Over time people came to speak of a “Doctrine of Discovery” as a concept of international law, invoked in the 19th-century lawsuits between the new States of the American Federation and indigenous peoples.

The Doctrine of Discovery is a legal concept coined in an 1823 U.S. Supreme Court decision that has come to be understood as meaning that ownership and sovereignty over land were passed to Europeans because they “discovered” it. It was cited as recently as a 2005 Supreme Court decision involving the Oneida Indian Nation.

Several Christian denominations in recent years have formally repudiated the Doctrine. The Canadian bishops did so in 2016.

The Residential School System

In Canada, the encounter of the Catholic Church with Indigenous peoples predates Confederation and residential schools by two centuries. Pope Francis, while at Quebec City at Notre Dame, prayed at the tomb of St. François de Laval, the first bishop of Canada who fought mightily with the French colonial authorities to defend the dignity and well-being of the Indigenous peoples, particularly regarding the alcohol trade.

The recent revisiting of the topic should not forget that in the late 19th century, the Canadian government instituted a policy of residential boarding schools for Indigenous children. The education would impart basic literacy and numeracy but also have a cultural dimension. Part of a project of assimilation most infamously expressed as “killing the Indian in the child.” Indigenous children were often forbidden to speak their Native languages or wear traditional dress. At first, attendance was voluntary, but in the early 20th century, it became compulsory, which meant the forced separation of children from their families. Most schools closed in the 1960s, though a few remained into the 1980s.

While the schools were instituted and funded by the Canadian government, the operation of the schools was entrusted to the churches. Catholics operated about two-thirds of the schools; Protestants ran the remaining third. The majority of the Catholic schools were run by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI).

The Churchill-Hudson Bay Diocese was the first Diocese in Canada to apologize to the former students of a residential school back in 1996. They were followed by apologies from Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 at the Vatican and a later apology by Pope Francis also at the Vatican, where he met with Indigenous leaders from Canada.

The Papal Apology and confronting the “Doctrine of Discovery”

In his apology at Maskwacis, Pope Francis said, “It is necessary to remember how the policies of assimilation and enfranchisement, which also included the residential school system, were devastating for the people of these lands. When the European colonists first arrived here, there was a great opportunity to bring about a fruitful encounter between cultures, traditions and forms of spirituality. Yet for the most part that did not happen.(…) Although Christian charity was not absent, and there were many outstanding instances of devotion and care for children, the overall effects of the policies linked to the residential schools were catastrophic. What our Christian faith tells us is that this was a disastrous error, incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

On the flight back to Rome from Canada, the Pope said the following about the Doctrine of colonization:

“This Doctrine of colonization: it is true, it is bad, it is unfair. It is used, even today, with silken gloves, perhaps, but it is used, today. For example, some bishops of some countries have told me: ‘When our country asks for credit from an international organisation, they put conditions on us, even legislative conditions, colonialist conditions. To give you credit they make you change your way of life a little bit’. Going back to our colonisation of America, that of the English, the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese: they are four [colonial powers] for whom there has always been that danger, or rather, that mentality ‘we are superior and these indigenous people do not count’, and that is serious. That is why we have to work at what you say: to go back and sanitise, let’s say, what was done wrong, in the knowledge that the same colonialism exists today. Think, for example, of a case, which is universal and I dare say so: I am thinking of the case of the Rohingya, in Myanmar: they do not have the right to citizenship, they are of an inferior level. Even today. “

– Raju Hasmukh

(with files from La Civilta Cattolica, ABC, Vatican.va)