In a brief protest at a papal Mass in Canada, Indigenous women unfurled a banner that said, “Rescind the Doctrine.”
The protest July 28 was a momentary but graphic reminder of how, when representatives of Canada’s First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities met Pope Francis at the Vatican in March and April, they asked him specifically for a formal repudiation of the so-called “Doctrine of Discovery.”
The phrase describes a collection of papal teachings, beginning in the 14th century, that blessed the efforts of explorers to colonize and claim the lands of any people who were not Christian, placing both the land and the people under the sovereignty of European Christian rulers.
The loss of the land, language, culture and spirituality of the Indigenous peoples of Canada and the foundation of the residential school system all can be traced to the doctrine, Indigenous leaders told reporters after their meetings with the Pope.
Asked July 20 if the Pope was expected to say something about the “Doctrine of Disco-very” while in Canada July 24-29, Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said, “a reflection is underway in the Holy See on the Doctrine of Disco-very,” and the study is nearing its conclusion. However, he said he was not certain that a statement would be completed before the papal trip ends or if the Pope would speak about it while in Canada.
Sarain Fox, an activist and member of the Batchewana First Nation near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, told Canada’s CBC News that she was one of the people holding the banner as Mass began in the National Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.
“It’s important for us to be recognized as human beings, so it’s not enough just to apologize. You need to talk about the root of everything,” which is the Doctrine of Discovery, Fox told.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a 2016 statement on the Doctrine of Disco-very, acknowledged the connect-ion between it and the government’s residential school policy, which forcibly removed Indigenous children from their homes and sent them to schools where their language, cultures and spiritualities were suppressed.