Time for the Vatican to Apologise - repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery

Time for the Vatican to Apologise - repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery

The Doctrine of Discovery was bought in to being in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI that gave European nations the ability to take lands that were not inhabited by Christians - meaning if they were First Nations and Indigenous they did not hold ownership and could be treated the way others saw fit. Its time for the Vatican to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery
The Doctrine of Discovery established a spiritual, political, and legal justification for colonization and seizure of land not inhabited by Christians. It has been invoked since Pope Alexander VI issued the Papal Bull “Inter Caetera” in 1493. The Papal decree aimed to justify Christian European explorers’ claims on land and waterways they allegedly discovered, and promote Christian domination and superiority, and has been applied in Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas. If an explorer proclaims to have discovered the land in the name of a Christian European monarch, plants a flag in its soil, and reports his “discovery” to the European rulers and returns to occupy it, the land is now his, even if someone else was there first. Should the original occupants insist on claiming that the land is theirs, the “discoverer” can label the occupants’ way of being on the land inadequate according to European standards. This ideology supported the dehumanization of those living on the land and their dispossession, murder, and forced assimilation. The Doctrine fueled white supremacy insofar as white European settlers claimed they were instruments of divine design and possessed cultural superiority.