President Higgins welcomes Vatican’s renunciation of doctrine that licensed colonialism

President Michael D Higgins has warmly welcomed the decision of Pope Francis to repudiate the Catholic Church’s “Doctrine of Discovery” which, since the 15th century, was used as license by Europeans to conquer Indigenous peoples and their lands in the Americas and Africa.

In a statement last week, the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education and its Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development said the Church upheld the dignity of every human being and “repudiates those concepts that fail to recognise the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political ‘doctrine of discovery’.”

The Doctrine of Discovery was “not part of the teaching of the Catholic Church”, it said, and that past papal documents associated with it, “written in a specific historical period and linked to political questions, have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith”.

Acknowledging the Church’s past failings in the area, it admitted that over the course of history, “many Christians have committed evil acts against Indigenous peoples for which recent Popes have asked forgiveness on numerous occasions”.

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These Popes “condemned acts of violence, oppression, social injustice and slavery, including those committed against indigenous peoples,” it said, and quoted Pope Francis himself that: “Never again can the Christian community allow itself to be infected by the idea that one culture is superior to others or that it is legitimate to employ ways of coercing others.”

The Doctrine of Discovery consisted of a series of edicts issued by the papacy since the 15th century which were used to endorse the colonisation of West Africa and the Americas. This was the subject of major discussion during the visit of Pope Francis to Canada last summer and, earlier in 2022, when a delegation of Indigenous peoples visited the Vatican with survivors of Canada’s residential schools and asked that the Church rescind the Doctrine of Discovery.

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In his letter to Pope Francis, President Higgins commended him “most warmly” on last week’s Vatican statement. “Renunciation of this 15th century concept will be welcomed by so many given that it has been used as defence of the most outrageous abuses, and manipulated for political purposes by competing colonial powers, in order to justify immoral acts against Indigenous peoples by European Christian colonialists. Such immorality included seizure of Indigenous peoples’ lands in Africa and the Americas.”

He continued: “Your strong condemnation of such acts of violence, oppression, social injustice and slavery, particularly those committed against Indigenous peoples, is another powerful intervention on your behalf, one that promotes universal solidarity and respect for the dignity of every human being.”

The call by Pope Francis on the Christian community “never to permit itself to be infected by ideas that promote superiority of one culture over another” was “so apposite in our contemporary circumstances in so many places across our world where we are witnessing rising xenophobia, racism, prejudice and intolerance which manifest ever more war and conflict,” President Higgins said.