Religion and Politics

Vatican Rejects “Doctrine of Discovery” Used to Justify Colonial Rule

Niha Masih of The Washington Post reports, “Using 15th-century papal decrees, European colonial powers captured and claimed Indigenous land in the Americas and elsewhere. Now, in a significant move centuries later, the Vatican on Thursday rejected the contentious ‘Doctrine of Discovery.’” The Church also included an apology for the acts of violence that the colonial powers later perpetrated against the indigenous groups. Phil Fontaine, the former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations in Canada, said, “Now the ball is in the court of governments, the United States and in Canada, but particularly in the United States where the doctrine is embedded in the law.”

Read at The Washington Post

• Email
• Print