In Canada, “the Catholic Church initiated a colonial mentality where it was a question of making indigenous children good Christians”

“The ‘doctrine of discovery’ is not part of the teaching of the Catholic Church. » This statement, made on March 30 in a note of two dicasteries (equivalent to ministries) of the Vatican, was long awaited. In the summer of 2022, many indigenous representatives deplored the silence of Pope Francis on this subject during his trip to Canada, during which he apologized to the Church for the violence committed in Catholic boarding schools.

The “Doctrine of Discovery” refers to a set of theories justifying the appropriation of land by settlers. Formally appeared in the United States in the 19th^e century, it is based, according to some commentators, on three papal bulls (decrees) of the XV^e century : Dum diversas (1452)Romanus pontifex (1455) and Inter cetera (1493). With the first two, Pope Nicolas V (1397-1455) authorized the King of Portugal to own land in Africa and America. The third, signed by Pope Alexander VI (1431-1503) – the famous Rodrigo Borgia – divided the American “New World” between Spaniards and Portuguese.

At the end of March, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Cardinal Michael Czerny, explained that these bubbles were only “circumstantial decrees”. They “have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith”we also read in the Vatican note, which insists: “ The Church rejects all concepts that do not recognize the inherent human rights of indigenous peoples. » How to understand the scope of such declarations? The world of religions asked the question to Jean-François Roussel, professor of religious studies at the University of Montreal (Canada).

What exactly is meant by the expression “doctrine of discovery” and when does it date from?

It can be defined as a set of theories that serve to justify the appropriation of indigenous territories and property by colonial states. This doctrine, as a constructed and argued conceptual apparatus, only really appeared in the United States, in 1823, with the Marshall judgment of the Supreme Court.

The idea was then to affirm that any people who intend to claim a right to land must form a society, which implies having institutions. However, in the colonial imagination of the time, the indigenous peoples of America had no institutions. This is an absolute falsehood, totally racist, but this argument was used to justify the appropriation of land.

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