Brazilian Indigenous Leaders Condemn Pope

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.

Read more: "Tribal Indians Condemn Pope"

Brazil's National Indian Foundation (Funa i),Brazilian historians and the Indians themselves challenged pope Benedict XVI's declarations on the Christianization of the Brazil's natives. The pope talked about the subject at the opening of the 5th General Conference of the Latin-American and Caribbean Episcopate (CELAM), in Brazil.

Read more: "Pope Called Insensitive and Arrogant for Remarks on Brazilian Indians"

See also: "Pope angers indigenous Brazilians over Christianity and colonisation remark"

And in the Reuters report in The Washington Post: "Brazil's Indians Offended by Pope Comments"

Pope Against Indigenous Religious Traditions

In an unsurprising declaration, following our previous post on the topic of the Roman Catholic Church and the cultural resrugence efforts of various indigenous peoples of the Americas, Pope Benedict XVI has pronounced himself against indigenous spiritual revivals. Speaking at the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, which runs through May 31, 2007, Catholic Online reported the following:

"A reference by the pope to pre-Columbus religions raised questions among some observers. While speaking positively of the synthesis between indigenous traditions and Christianity that led to the popular religious devotions found throughout Latin America, the pontiff warned against 'the utopia of going back to breathe life into the pre-Columbus religions, separating them from Christ and from the universal church'."

For more, see: Latin American, Caribbean bishops tackle pope’s ‘challenge to church’

The Vatican and Indigenous Cultural Revival

On May 2, 2007, Guzmán Carriquiry Lecour, who is the Undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, spoke with the Italian magazine Il Consulente Re (http://www.ilconsulentere.it/) about the Fifth General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean, to be held in Brazil later this month.

Carriquiry dismissed indigenous cultures from playing any role in fomenting Latin American unity, noting that "The great symbols of Latin American unity are not indigenous ones because, before the arrival of the Spaniards and Portuguese, the continent was totally fragmented -- a Babel -- without the slightest awareness of itself." He added that the "true symbols of unity are Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Christ of the Andes, the Church as the sacrament of unity among our peoples in Catholicism." Originality is to be found in the Gospel, he argues: "The Gospel incarnated in the peoples is the deepest element of the historical-cultural originality that we call Latin America."

While not entirely dismissing indigenous peoples, and proclaiming that they deserve respect, such respect does not extend to indigenous cultural practices: "another matter altogether is trying to rekindle sorcerers, shamans, ancient indigenous cosmogonies -- the attempt of an arbitrary archaism, stemming more from ideological manipulation than from a true answer to the needs and demands of indigenous communities."

The Catholic Church and the Caribs in Trinidad

In a report published in one of Trinidad and Tobago's daily newspapers, Newsday, titled "Carib descendants ponder another holiday" (Sunday, October 15, 2006), there is some interesting information on the still evolving relationship between the Roman Catholic Church in Trinidad and the Santa Rosa Carib Community. According to the report:

"Monsignor Christian Perreira, parish priest of the Santa Rosa Church, admitted that there was much more 'healing' to take place between the First Peoples and the Church. 'This relationship still has to be fleshed out,' he said. 'The apology and intention are there, the atonement is there and while in very many ways the First Peoples have accepted that atonement, there is still the healing to come.' Fr Perreira added that the country’s oldest feast, The Feast of Santa Rosa, which is shared by the Church and the Carib community, has sought to bridge the divide for the past 220 years."

To my knowledge, the Catholic Church in Trinidad has never formally and publicly apologized for its exploitation and abuse of the indigenous people it held under its control in the missions.