Academic blames the church and the Papacy for colonialism and slavery
"The Church will have to continue to face up to her history".
During Pope Francis' trip to Canada, the role of the
Catholic Church in the colonisation of the Americas has once again come into
focus. In a cic interview, Professor
Mariano Delgado comments on the role of the Papal magisterium in the history of
colonisation.
Roland Juchem
In Canada, representatives of indigenous peoples demanded
that Francis retract earlier papal documents that had contributed to the
"doctrine of discovery". How
do you translate that into German?
Mariano Delgado*: Most of the time, one sticks to English. The term arose in the Anglophone world in
recent years in the course of a radicalised critique of colonialism, when, for
example, monuments to European conquerors, explorers and missionaries were
overturned. In this respect, it is part
of the "cancel culture" criticised in its turn, which wants to erase
everything that was illegitimate and wrong by today's standards.
Permission to enslave
What exactly is meant by the Doctrine of Discovery?
Delgado: In relation to the Catholic Church, it means the
papal-curial co-responsibility for European colonial expansion. This manifested itself above all in three
papal bulls of the 15th century: "Dum Diversas" (1452) and
"Romanus Pontifex" (1455) by Nicholas V and "Inter Caetera"
(1493) by Alexander VI. Nicholas granted
the Portuguese kings permission to conquer the lands of infidels, to subjugate
and enslave their inhabitants.
This was initially to fight the Saracens on the West coast
of Africa and granted the Portuguese a trade monopoly to Asia. After Columbus' return from America, Alexander
VI also granted this right to the Spanish with a view to the "New
World", although it was not yet known what this looked like.
Was there already criticism of these Papal documents at that
time?
Delgado: Not so much criticism, but they were interpreted
differently. Some said: The Pope has at most "potestas" (power) over
the Christian world. But there is the
right to migrate and the duty to mission, which could also justify European
expansion. Another reading said: No, the
Pope also allows violent subjugation because the indigenous people are not only
infidels but also inferior barbarians with ways of life that contradict natural
law.
Valuing other religions and cultures
A third, by Bartolome de Las Casas, for example, warned: The
bull "Inter Caetera" only permits evangelisation by peaceful means
that respect the freedom of the addressees. Indigenous people and Europeans have equal
dignity, mission must value other cultures and religions and be informal.
Did only Catholics develop such a doctrine?
Delgado: No. After the Puritans landed on the North
American East Coast in 1620, they formulated the following self-understanding
in 1635: The earth belongs to the Lord God. The Lord can give the earth to his chosen people
- and take it away from others. We are
the chosen people. That is the same
thinking, only without the Pope. Hence,
there is an "ecumenism of failure" in European colonial history.
There have been calls in Canada for Francis to explicitly
recant the bulls of his predecessors. Can
he and should he do that?
Delgado: In church history, you tend to find a re-interpretation
of earlier documents rather than an explicit revocation. For example, Pope Paul III forbade the
enslavement of Indians as early as 1537 in his bull "Sublimis Deus". The Native Americans, the Pope said, were free
people and legitimate owners of their lands and evangelisation must only be
peaceful etc.
Indirect revocation of the Bull of Concession
The letter came about as a result of pressure from
pro-indigenous missionaries. Interestingly,
Paul III wrote at the end: "Anything contrary to these provisions is null
and void." This was already an indirect retraction of some aspects of
Alexander VI's Bull, "Inter Caetera".
But it had little effect.
Delgado: Which was also because Emperor Charles V protested
against this Papal interference and the later Spanish kings and conquistadors
ignored the document. They continued to
refer to "Inter Caetera", called the Bull of Concession in Spain.
"Extreme Papalism"
The papacy also never explicitly challenged the Spanish
invocation of "Inter Caetera", because that would mean disavowing an
important decision of a pope - with the corresponding diplomatic conflicts.
What could a Catholic declaration which has been demanded on
the "Doctrine of Discovery" look like?
Delgado: I suppose one could emphasise the primacy of
"Sublimis Deus". Also, one
could, to a certain extent, evaluate the Papal donation to the rulers of
Portugal and Spain as heresy on the ground of extreme Papalism.
The arrogance of Christian rule
This was because the Pope had arrogated to himself dominion
over the lands of the infidels, something that great Catholic theologians of
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance questioned, not only the Reformers. And one could refer to an argument of Las
Casas, who said: Only when people freely accept Christianity and Christian rule
is Christian rule legitimate.
What tasks still face the Catholic Church in coming to terms
with its colonisation history?
Delgado: The Roman Catholic Church will have to continue to
face its own history. In particular, the
slavery of the black population of Africa, which Nicholas V had expressly
approved in his Bull "Romanus Pontifex" in 1455. Only in the 18th and 19th centuries were there
timid papal condemnations of black slavery.
The excessive Papalism in the second millennium should be
critically examined. It began with the
bull "Dictatus Papae" (1075) of Gregory VII, who saw the Pope as the sole
Lord of the World who granted fiefdoms to secular rulers. This already happened when the Pope gave
Sicily as a fief to the Normans in 1130 in order to expel Muslims and
schismatics there. The presumption of Popes
to rule over non-Christian countries is annoying.
Especially since 1992, the 500th anniversary of Columbus,
there has been an emphasis on the value and autonomy of non-European cultures
and a broader rethinking of mission and colonialism. On the one hand, Christians have been involved
in conquest and subjugation, have justified them; on the other hand, critiques
of colonialism have from the beginning invoked both the Gospel and ancient
Greco-Roman traditions.
*Mariano Delgado is a church historian, Professor of
Medieval and Modern Church History at the University of Freiburg and Dean of
the Theological Faculty there.
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