Native leaders dissatisfied with landmark Vatican statement on Doctrine of Discovery: “we demand more”

For decades Indigenous leaders have advocated for the Vatican to rescind the centuries-old church policy known as the Doctrine of Discovery, which for almost 500 years provided the basis for European nations to justify their taking of Indigenous lands throughout the world, including in the Americas, Africa, and Australia. The doctrine legitimzed the forceful seizing of Native lands and the near-total destruction of Indigenous peoples under the pretense that European colonizers “discovered” the land.

Scholars say the Doctrine also laid the foundation for what is now known as the “Boarding School Era,” a period between 1869 and the 1960s in which hundreds of thousands of Native children across the U.S. and Canada were forcibly removed from their homes to attend residential boarding schools. The schools were operated by the Federal government and, often, the Catholic Church. Children at the schools often suffered horrific physical, sexual, emotional, and spiritual abuse and neglect. Many died.

In a historic statement on March 30, 2023, the Vatican formally repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, based on numerous 15th century papal decrees or edicts (also called papal bulls) that granted permission to colonial powers to seize lands in the “New World” — providing the people living on the lands were not Christians.

The government of the United States was heavily influenced by the doctrine in 1823, when the U.S. Supreme Court used it as the basis for its ruling that Indigenous people had only the rights of occupancy, not ownership, over lands on which they dwelled. As recently as 2005, the Doctrine of Discovery was used by the Supreme Court to justify limiting the expansion of the Oneida Nation in the Sherrill v. Oneida Nation of New York case.

Native leaders immediately protested that the landmark March 30 statement did not bring any semblance of justice to the history and on-going legacy of the Doctrine. Mark Charles (Dine), author of Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, said, “In what could have been a groundbreaking and historic repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, the Vatican instead released a series of political statements that sought to rewrite history, shield the Catholic Church from legal liability and shift the blame for the Doctrine of Discovery to governmental and colonial powers.”

In the March 30 statement issued jointly by the Vatican’s development and education departments, the Catholic Church repudiated “those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political ‘doctrine of discovery.’”

The Doctrine of Discovery “is not a part of the teaching of the Catholic Church,” according to the March 30 Vatican statement, which acknowledges the sufferings of Indigenous people “due to the expropriation of their lands … as well as the policies of forced assimilation, promoted by the governmental authorities of the time, intended to eliminate their indigenous cultures.”

Levi Rickert (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation), publisher of Native News Online, compared the repudiation to Pope Francis’ apology last year in Canada for the horrific deeds committed against innocent Indigenous students in residential schools. “In that apology, Francis blamed individuals versus the Catholic Church. Similarly, Thursday’s statement denied that the doctrine was ever fully sanctioned by the Church,” Rickert said.

Charmaine White Face, or Zumila Wobaga (Oglala Tituwan Oceti Sakowin), is the spokesperson for the Sioux Nation Treaty Council (SNTC) since 2004. White Face issued a statement on Saturday, April 1, 2023, which reads, “(The Pope) only ‘repudiated’ the Doctrines of Discovery, not “revoked” them. … There is a difference between ‘repudiate’ and ‘revoke’. … The Catholic Church needs to ‘revoke’ the Doctrines of Discovery. (Francis) needs to repeal them…”

In a statement issued on March 30, the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) criticized the Church for failing to take accountability. 

“While the Vatican’s decision to renounce the Doctrine of Discovery is the right one, it downplays the Church’s role and accountability for the harm it has caused to Native peoples. It does not change the fact that the Church’s views gave permission to colonizers to take Native lands and assimilate Native peoples,” NABS CEO Deb Parker (Tulalip) said in a statement. “We demand more from the Catholic Church. We demand more transparency, including access to Indian boarding school documents, which they have refused to provide. We demand that the Church returns lands to the Tribal Nations in which it operated Indian boarding schools. We demand that the Church supports the Truth and Healing Bill, which would establish a federal commission and conduct a full inquiry into the assimilative policies of U.S. Indian boarding schools.”

Michelle Schenandoah of the Oneida Nation On March 30, called the March 30 Vatican statement “another step in the right direction,” but noted that it didn’t mention the rescinding of the bulls themselves.

“I think what this does is it really puts the responsibility on nation states such as the United States, to look at its use of the Doctrine of Discovery,” she said in an interview from Syracuse, New York, where she is a professor of Indigenous law at Syracuse University’s College of Law. “This goes beyond land. It really has created generation upon generation of genocidal policies directed towards Indigenous peoples. …”

The National Congress of American Indians also issued a statement on March 30 which reads, “…It is our sincere hope that today’s announcement is more than mere words, but rather is the beginning of a full acknowledgement of the history of oppression and a full accounting of the legacies of colonialism—not just by the Roman Catholic Church, but by all the world governments that have used racism, prejudice and religious authority to not only justify past inequalities, but to allow, fuel, and perpetuate the institutionalization of those inequalities that continue to this very day.”

Cardinal Michael Czerny, a Canadian Jesuit whose office co-authored the March 30 Vatican statement, stressed that the statement wasn’t just about setting the historical record straight, but “to discover, identify, analyze and try to overcome what we can only call the enduring effects of colonialism today.”

NOTE: Support is available for anyone affected by their experience at residential schools or by the latest reports. A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for former students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.

Mental health counselling and crisis support is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca.

 

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