ST-ANNE-DE-BEAUPRÉ, Quebec, Canada ( Associated Press) – Pope Francis celebrated Mass at Canada’s National Temple on Thursday and faced a long-standing demand of indigenous peoples: to become the basis of the so-called “doctrine” to annul the decree of the Pope. Discovery” was used during the colonial era to legalize the confiscation of native land and resources.
Before starting Mass, two indigenous women opened a banner on the altar of the National Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre, which read: “Cancel the doctrine”, in red and black. The demonstrators were removed from the temple and the crowd moved on without incident, although the women later removed the banner from the basilica and placed it on the railing.
The brief protest highlights one of the issues facing the Holy See following Francis’ historic apology for the Catholic Church’s role in religious boarding schools in Canada, where generations of Indigenous children and adolescents have been forcibly removed from their families and their cultures. was separated so that they could be assimilated. Canadian Christian Society. Francis has spent a week in Canada trying to ease the trauma and suffering of First Nations peoples, the Metis and the Inuit.
In addition to amnesty, indigenous peoples have asked the pope to formally repeal 15th-century papal edicts that provided religious support for European states to expand their territories to spread Christianity. Those decrees form the basis of the Doctrine of Discovery, a legal principle coined in an 1823 U.S. Supreme Court decision that believed that land ownership and sovereignty passed to Europeans because They were “discoveries”.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in his private conversation with Francis on Wednesday noted the need for the Holy See to “address the principle of discovery”, among other issues, including the return of indigenous artifacts to Vatican museums, the Vatican said. The Office.
