Tribal Indians condemn pope

[ashling]

A Roman Catholic advocacy group for tribal Indians criticised Pope Benedict's speech

Indian leaders in Brazil have reacted angrily to comments by Pope Benedict that they had been purified by the Roman Catholic church since Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492.

In a speech to bishops at the end of a visit to Brazil on Sunday, Benedict said indigenous people of the Americas had welcomed European priests after conquest.

"It's arrogant and disrespectful to consider our cultural heritage secondary to theirs," said Jecinaldo Satere Mawe, chief co-ordinator of Coiab, an Amazon Indian group.

The pope had said the peoples of the Americas had a "silent longing" for Christianity and welcomed European priests' arrival.


He said the church had not imposed itself on the indigenous peoples of the Americas.



Colonisation



Since Colombus's landing, millions of tribal Indians are believed to have died as a result of European colonisation backed by the Roman Catholic church through murder, disease or enslavement.



"To say the cultural decimation of our people represents a purification is offensive, and frankly, frightening"

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D809D115-1128-4092-9BA6-30F716C56052.htm

[Selatius]

1. I would've done the same thing, as well.

"When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land."

-- Bishop Desmond Tutu, attributed.

[Harper_is_Bush]

2. What do you expect from a man who ordered sex crimes against children to be covered up? n/t

[Rex]

3. Hey, he got rid of a plane of existence the other day, guess he is feeling randy.

Seriously, just stay in your little city Benny. You're an embarrassment.

[SpiralHawk]

4. Free history lesson for the Pope on the "requerimiento"

And how the "requerimiento" shoved the Roman impulse down the throats of the native peoples of North, Central and South America to enslave them and appropriate their land and wealth.

http://www.8thfire.net/Day_169.html

"Coronado’s aide then read to the people a requerimiento -- a formal declaration of sovereignty, and a set of demands. The requerimiento asserted that the Popes -- who claimed to be successors of the man god Jesus Christ through his apostle Peter -- held god's authority for rulership over the entire Earth. The declaration also said that the Pope had the right to share his supreme rulership with allied kings and their armies, and that to all of this the native people must swear immediate allegiance.

"The formal demands were unitelligible to the natives because they were read in Latin. In essence, the requerimiento said: If you do not surrender completely now and bow down and worship our god, we will subject you to the yoke and obedience of the church and the king. We will take your wives and children, and we will make them slaves…We will take your property…We declare that the deaths and injuries that occur as a result of this would be your fault, not ours…"

..snip...

[varun]

5. Spiritual genocide

Thats what the Catholic church is responsible for in S. America and Asia.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Perhaps the "pope" would take the time to read a little history,

perhaps watch Dances With Wolves, or just read a little of the following...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1567.html


In 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died.

This picture, The Trail of Tears, was painted by Robert Lindneux in 1942. It commemorates the suffering of the Cherokee people under forced removal. If any depictions of the "Trail of Tears" were created at the time of the march, they have not survived.

Image Credit: The Granger Collection, New York