Initial Thoughts on Today’s Announcement from the Catholic Church – First Peoples Law

March 30, 2023

Here are my initial thoughts on today’s announcement from the Catholic Church regarding the Doctrine of Discovery.

• What took so long! While today’s announcement is welcomed, it would have had more moral authority if it had been delivered by the Pope in person to Indigenous people during his visit to Canada last year.
• It’s more than a little rich for the Vatican to assert now that the papal bulls were “manipulated for political purposes by competing colonial powers.” The Catholic Church has known for hundreds of years of the effect of the papal bulls and has directly benefitted from them. It undermines today’s announcement to point fingers elsewhere.
• The Church should have gone further. It should have called on the governments of countries based on the doctrine of discovery (e.g. Canada, United States, Australia, etc.) to repudiate it and take action towards redress.

Read More: https://www.firstpeopleslaw.com/public-education/blog/initial-thoughts-on-todays-announcement-from-the-catholic-church