VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican responded to Indigenous demands Thursday by officially repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery, theories backed by 15th-century papal bulls that legitimized colonial-era Indigenous land grabbing and constituted the basis of some existing property laws.

Papal bulls or decrees from the 15th century “did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples” and were never considered expressions of the Catholic faith, according to a Vatican statement.

The statement, from the Vatican’s development and education offices, marked a historic acknowledgment of Vatican complicity in abuses committed by European powers during the colonial era. It was published under the first Latin American pope in history, who was hospitalized with a respiratory infection exactly one year after Francis met with Canadian indigenous leaders at the Vatican.

Those leaders on Thursday hailed the statement as a good first step, though they did not talk about repealing the bulls and continued to refrain from acknowledging Vatican responsibility for abuses. The documents, the statement noted, were “manipulated” for political purposes by colonial powers “to justify immoral acts against indigenous peoples that were committed, at times, without opposition from ecclesiastical authorities.”

He said it was right to “recognize these mistakes,” acknowledge the disastrous consequences of colonial-era assimilation policies for Indigenous peoples, and ask for their forgiveness.

The statement responded to decades of indigenous demands for the Vatican to officially rescind papal bulls that provided the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal with religious support to expand their territories in Africa and the Americas under the guise of spreading Christianity.

These executive orders support the Doctrine of Discovery, a legal concept coined in an 1823 United States Supreme Court decision that is interpreted to mean that ownership and sovereignty of the land passed to Europeans because they have “discovered”.

The principle was most recently cited in a 2005 Supreme Court decision regarding the Oneida Indian Nation, authored by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

During Pope Francis’ visit to Canada in 2022, during which he apologized to Indigenous peoples for a boarding system that forcibly removed Indigenous children from their homes, he uncovered claims that the Church had officially repudiated the papal bulls.

On July 29, two Indigenous women unfurled a banner at the altar of the Santa Ana de Beaupré National Shrine with the words “Repeal the Doctrine” in large red and black letters. The demonstrators were escorted out of the venue and the mass passed without incident, although the women then carried the banner from the basilica and hung it from a balustrade.

Michelle Schenandoah of the Oneida Nation previously called on the Vatican to revoke the papal bulls when she delivered the closing remarks to the First Nations delegation that met Francis during a week-long visit by Canadian Indigenous groups. Last year. On Thursday, he said the Vatican’s statement was “another step in the right direction”, although it made no mention of revoking the bulls.

“I think it really forces nation states like the United States to see how they use the doctrine of discovery,” she said in an interview from Syracuse, New York, where she is a professor of Indian law. at the University of Washington. Syracuse Law School.

In the statement, the Vatican said “the Catholic Church therefore repudiates concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including the legal and political (concept) known as the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ “.

Phil Fontaine, a former national chief of Canada’s Assembly of First Nations and a member of the First Nations delegation that met with Francis at the Vatican, said the declaration was “wonderful”, resolved unfinished business and now falls under the review by civil authorities. property laws that cite the doctrine.

“The Church has done one thing, as she said, for the Holy Father. Now the ball is in the court of the governments, in the United States and Canada, but especially in the United States, where the doctrine is incorporated into law,” he told The Associated Press.

The Vatican has provided no evidence that the three 15th-century papal bulls (Dum Diversas in 1452, Romanus Pontifex in 1455, and Inter Caetera in 1493) were officially rejected, rescinded, or abolished, as government officials have often said. Vatican. However, he cited a later bull, Sublimis Deus, of 1537, which reaffirmed that indigenous peoples were not to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, and were not to be enslaved.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, the Canadian Jesuit whose office co-wrote the statement, noted that the bulls had long since been revoked and that the use of the term “doctrine” – which in this case is a legal term and not a religious – had caused confusion for centuries about the role of the Church.

The original bulls, he said, “are treated as if they were documents of teaching, magisterium or doctrine, and they are a political measure of the moment. And I think that to solemnly repudiate a political measure of the moment is to generate more confusion than clarity.

He stressed that the aim of the declaration was not just to set the record straight, but to “discover, identify, analyze and try to overcome what can only be called the lasting effects of colonialism today.

It is significant that the rejection of the Doctrine of Discovery occurred during the tenure of the first Latin American pope in history. Francisco, who is Argentine, had already apologized before the trip to Canada with the natives of Bolivia in 2015 for the crimes of the colonial conquest of the American continent. Thursday’s decision was made while the pope was hospitalized with a respiratory infection.

Felix Hoehn, a professor of real estate and administrative law at the University of Saskatchewan, said the Vatican’s statement would have no legal value for land claims in Canada, but would have symbolic value.

“The most a papal repudiation of the doctrine (or the bulls themselves) can do in relation to Canadian law is to pressure the Supreme Court of Canada to renounce the doctrine under the Canadian law,” he said.

Beyond that, there is hope that the declaration shows that the Catholic Church wants to be an ally of indigenous peoples in their fight for their human rights and their land, and to protect it, Fr David said. McCallum, an American Jesuit who worked with natives of the Syracuse area and was consulted for the preparation of the document.

“Now let the church not only acknowledge the damage, but also repudiate the whole mentality of cultural superiority, racial superiority, which in a sense is giving up all that thinking and saying that in the future it wants to be an active ally in the protection of Indigenous human rights as well as all human rights, I think that’s a great statement,” he said.___ Rob Gillies contributed to this report from Toronto.