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A Native Response to Pope Benedict XVI
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Steven L. Robinson (activ-l)
Axis of Logic - May 25, 2007
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_24651.shtml
Native response to Pope Benedict XVI
By Humberto Cholango, Quito
Translated by Benedetta Scardovi Mounier (Tlaxcala)
"No more new and renewed conquests in the name of nothing. We reject the
political and religious coincidences that exist between Bush and the
Pope in criminalizing the fight of the oppressed peoples."
Statement of the confederation of the people of the Kichwa nation of
Ecuador in response to the declarations of Pope Benedict xvi during the
meeting of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (celam), that
took place in may 2007 in BraZil
May 18, 2007
As Native peoples and nationalities of the Abya Yala continent
(America) we strongly reject the declarations made by the Pope about
our ancestral spirituality and the political statements made about some
presidents of Latin America and the Caribbean. We especially reject
these statements because they were part of a speech addressing a
continent in which the gap between the poor and the rich gets bigger
every day - a continent where the catholic sentiment (implying
centuries of "evangelization"), is still really strong - a continent in
which the same religion unfortunately failed to give a fair and
dignified life to all the inhabitants.
These declarations have been made precisely when Life on the Earth is
being seriously threatened and the responsibility for that threat is
not of the presidents quoted by the Pope in his speech, but of others
like like the President of the United States, George W. Bush, who
brandish the flag of a greedy neoliberal capitalistic system.
What is really unbelievable is that someone who calls himself the
representation of Christ on this earth, should be worrying about those
Latin American presidents that are socially concerned. It should be
clear by now that our continent has the right to self determination. No
more new and renewed conquests in the name of nothing.
If we analyze, with simple human sensibility, without fanatism of any
sort, the history of the invasion of Abya Yala carried out by the
Spaniards with the complicity of the Catholic Church, we can only get
indignated.
Surely the Pope must ignore that back in those days the representatives
of the Catholic Church, with few honorable exceptions, were
accomplices, cover ups, or beneficiaries of one of the most horrible
genocides experienced by human society. More than 70 million people
died in concentration camps mainly for mining, public works and
construction. Entire nationalities and peoples were wiped out. Look at
what happened in Cuba; they would bring in black people, who themselves
had to undergo an unfortunate fate, as a replacement for dead people.
They exploited our rich soil to economically save their feudal system.
The women were cowardly raped and thousands of children died of
malnutrition or unknown diseases.
The philosophical and theological idea behind it was that our ancestors
"didn't have a soul".
Alongside the murderers of our heroic leaders there was always a priest
or a bishop who would indoctrinate the condemned victim, in order for
him/her to get baptized before dying while obviously giving up his/her
philosophical and theological credo.
Let's not forget father Valverde, the priest who introduced the Bible to
Atahualpa in Cajamarca, telling him that it was the word of God. King
Atahualpa saw that the book wasn't speaking and threw it away because
his own God instead, spoke in the heart of the Mother Earth, in the
water, in the wind, in the luminous force of the sun and in the
fertility of the moon, in the heartbeat of human beings, of animals and
plants. Following this, father Valverde ordered the arrest of Atahualpa.
Some time afterwards, the representative of the God of the Sun and the
Moon on this territory was killed after getting baptized and re-named
after his murderer, Francisco Pizzarro.
Many of our brothers and sister preferred to die, burned alive rather
than giving up their principles. This was the case with our brother
Hatuey in the island of Cuba, who rejected the indoctrinating
statements made by the priest before his killing about how important it
would have been for him to get baptized before dying so that he would
have joined the other "Christians" in "Heaven". Hatuey responded that
he would have rather gone to Hell than spending his other life together
with his oppressors, thieves, and murderers. He eventually was
condemned to the stake for this.
In the territory that's now Ecuador, the great leader Calicuchima,
rather than accepting the baptism of the priest before his
condemnation, rebelled by walking towards the stake and, as the flames
encircled him, he screamed with all his might "PACHAKAMAK!" (the Great
Spirit Bringing Order to the Totality of Creation).
We should ask the Pope if God - whom he claims he represents - would
agree to those crimes against humanity. And we should also remind the
Head of the Church and the Spanish government that these kinds of
crimes are referred to neither in the earthly laws, nor in the divine
ones.
The Christian churches, and the Catholic Church especially, have an
enormous debt with Christ, with the poor people of the world and we,
the Native peoples and nationalities, have also had to undergo that
brutality. Although the Spanish State and the Vatican cannot compensate
anymore for the damages suffered as a consequence of the horrific
genocide, the Head of the Catholic Church should at least admit the
mistakes made, just as his predecessor John Paul II had done in
relation to the Nazi and the Holocaust, and he should learn from Jesus
Christ, who in order to express his message, he transformed himself in
the culture of the Jewish people respecting it fully and was consistent
with that whatever message he preached, no matter what the consequences.
It's inconceivable that in the 21st century, God still has to be defined
according to the European standards. The Pope should know that before
the Catholic priests and their Bibles reached our territories, our
people already had a God and his word is what supported the life of our
people and the Mother Earth. The word of God cannot be only contained
in a book, and no religion should try to privatize God.
We, the First Nations, were civilizations with governments and social
structures ordered according to our principles; we also had our own
religion with sacred books, rituals, male and female priests who were
the first to be killed by those who served the "god of greed" and not
the God of Love that Jesus Christ speaks about.
The Bible teaches that those who say they love God although they don't
see him and don't love their own brother that they can see, are liars.
The ones that desecrated the name of Christ, introducing themselves as
his representatives, while they truly were just thieves and murderers,
betrayed Christ' noble mission. How could they be representatives of
someone that was born in a stable, of humble parents, surrounded by
farmers and wanted dead or alive by the rulers of the time who held the
political, economic and religious power?
They couldn't possibly be representing someone who said that anyone
needs a roof over their head although he himself had no material
belongings.
How could these greedy people represent someone that sacrificed in the
name of humanity, so much so that he gave up his own life to reveal the
truth to the poor of the world.
These were not representatives of Jesus Christ; their "god" was blood
thirsty for human lives and for the richness exploited through violence
and they carried out the same horrible crimes that all prophets loathed
in the Bible!
It's only fair to remember and give credit to the lives of some priests,
which took the side of those they called "indios" in the face of so much
violence. People such as Bartolomi de las Casas and other Dominican
priests that defended the rights of our ancestors that had been stepped
upon. And it's also fair to remember and present our deepest respect to
all religious men and women, bishop and priests that gave their lives
to help the poor of our continent and of any other part of the world;
we are especially grateful to Monsignor Leonidas Proaqo who worked
honestly with the poor of Ecuador and served for the cause of the
liberation of the Native Peoples and Nationalities for more than 30
years.
The representatives of God today, of whichever Christian church, should
respect and revere life just as Jesus did. They have the ethical and
moral duty to condemn all injustice and have to deliver Jesus' message
while being at the service of the poor and not on the side of the
oppressors. And if they want to carry out a real evangelization of the
Native Peoples and Nationalities they have to deliver the authentic
message of Christ without trying to destroy our cultures, because
that's how He did it and that's whom they say they represent.
You cannot preach the message of Jesus Christ from the opulent point of
view, from the point of view of those who desecrate the life created by
God, from the point of the biggest destroyers of life on earth.
We reject the political and religious coincidences that exist between
Bush and the Pope in criminalizing the fight of the oppressed peoples.
We want consistency! The inconsistency of many who claim they are
representatives of Christ is what keeps people from going to church, and
especially the Catholic church - which seems to be such a concern for
the Pope.
We accept the message of hope, of love and of freedom of Jesus Christ.
We know that He said that he came for everybody to be alive and to have
an abundant life. What we do not accept is that in the name of whatever
religion they would come back and bless our deaths, that of our
children and that of millions of poor people of the world.
The Pope stated that "the utopia of revitalizing pre-Columbian
religions, separating them from that of Christ and of the universal
church, would not represent a step forward but a step backward for the
native peoples" who reached "a blend of their own culture and the
Christian faith which missionaries offered them".
We think the life of Jesus is the Great Light coming from Inti Yaya
(Paternal and Maternal Light that supports it all), whose aim is to
deter anything that doesn't let us live in justice and brotherhood
among human beings and in harmony with Mother Nature. We respect its
authentic followers.
Life taught us that "one can tell a tree from its fruits", as Christ
said and we can tell who serves the poor and who takes advantage of
them.
The Pope should note that our religions NEVER DIED, we learned how to
merge our beliefs and symbols with the ones of the invaders and
oppressors.
We keep on going to our temples, because we know that underneath the
main Catholic temples there used to be our sacred sites which have been
destroyed. With the excuse of building anew they tried to destroy our
beliefs but to no avail, since our temples had been built in which the
great forces get together reflecting: strength, wisdom and the love of
the great spirit, both father and mother of all the creatures living on
this beautiful planet.
We give our solidarity to our brother the President EVO MORALES, who
works for the poor, a human being that sacrificed his life for truth,
justice and fraternity between peoples and we are sure that Jesus
Christ considers him his FRIEND.
Our solidarity goes to HUGO CHAVEZ and with FIDEL CASTRO, socially
concerned Presidents that sacrificed themselves for a dignified life
for the people.
Our hearts are always with those who are, in whichever corner of the
world, working for a dignified life for everybody and for the health of
Allpa Mama (Mother Earth).
In the name of our ancestors who have been stepped upon and of the
million of us, poor people, of the continent of Abya Yala hoping to
have a dignified life for all, we renew our strong determination in
regaining our rights and we won't allow anybody to carry out another
genocide such as the one that started 514 years ago.
[Humberto Cholango is the President of the Confederation of the Kichwa
Nationality of Ecuador or Ecuarunari, the Most Numerous Organization of
Conaie (Council of Native Nationalities of Ecuador).]
Original Source in Spanish ALTERCOM Communicacisn para del Libertad
Tlaxcala- Translated into English by Benedetta Scardovi Mounier, a
member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity.
This translation is on Copyleft for any non-commercial use: verbatim
copy of the translation in its entirety may be freely reproduced,
respecting its integrity and citing the source, the author and the
translator.
================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
Search Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/htdig/search.html
List Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
Subscribe: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
================================================================
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Hash: SHA1
A Native Response to Pope Benedict XVI
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Steven L. Robinson (activ-l)
Axis of Logic - May 25, 2007
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_24651.shtml
Native response to Pope Benedict XVI
By Humberto Cholango, Quito
Translated by Benedetta Scardovi Mounier (Tlaxcala)
"No more new and renewed conquests in the name of nothing. We reject the
political and religious coincidences that exist between Bush and the
Pope in criminalizing the fight of the oppressed peoples."
Statement of the confederation of the people of the Kichwa nation of
Ecuador in response to the declarations of Pope Benedict xvi during the
meeting of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (celam), that
took place in may 2007 in BraZil
May 18, 2007
As Native peoples and nationalities of the Abya Yala continent
(America) we strongly reject the declarations made by the Pope about
our ancestral spirituality and the political statements made about some
presidents of Latin America and the Caribbean. We especially reject
these statements because they were part of a speech addressing a
continent in which the gap between the poor and the rich gets bigger
every day - a continent where the catholic sentiment (implying
centuries of "evangelization"), is still really strong - a continent in
which the same religion unfortunately failed to give a fair and
dignified life to all the inhabitants.
These declarations have been made precisely when Life on the Earth is
being seriously threatened and the responsibility for that threat is
not of the presidents quoted by the Pope in his speech, but of others
like like the President of the United States, George W. Bush, who
brandish the flag of a greedy neoliberal capitalistic system.
What is really unbelievable is that someone who calls himself the
representation of Christ on this earth, should be worrying about those
Latin American presidents that are socially concerned. It should be
clear by now that our continent has the right to self determination. No
more new and renewed conquests in the name of nothing.
If we analyze, with simple human sensibility, without fanatism of any
sort, the history of the invasion of Abya Yala carried out by the
Spaniards with the complicity of the Catholic Church, we can only get
indignated.
Surely the Pope must ignore that back in those days the representatives
of the Catholic Church, with few honorable exceptions, were
accomplices, cover ups, or beneficiaries of one of the most horrible
genocides experienced by human society. More than 70 million people
died in concentration camps mainly for mining, public works and
construction. Entire nationalities and peoples were wiped out. Look at
what happened in Cuba; they would bring in black people, who themselves
had to undergo an unfortunate fate, as a replacement for dead people.
They exploited our rich soil to economically save their feudal system.
The women were cowardly raped and thousands of children died of
malnutrition or unknown diseases.
The philosophical and theological idea behind it was that our ancestors
"didn't have a soul".
Alongside the murderers of our heroic leaders there was always a priest
or a bishop who would indoctrinate the condemned victim, in order for
him/her to get baptized before dying while obviously giving up his/her
philosophical and theological credo.
Let's not forget father Valverde, the priest who introduced the Bible to
Atahualpa in Cajamarca, telling him that it was the word of God. King
Atahualpa saw that the book wasn't speaking and threw it away because
his own God instead, spoke in the heart of the Mother Earth, in the
water, in the wind, in the luminous force of the sun and in the
fertility of the moon, in the heartbeat of human beings, of animals and
plants. Following this, father Valverde ordered the arrest of Atahualpa.
Some time afterwards, the representative of the God of the Sun and the
Moon on this territory was killed after getting baptized and re-named
after his murderer, Francisco Pizzarro.
Many of our brothers and sister preferred to die, burned alive rather
than giving up their principles. This was the case with our brother
Hatuey in the island of Cuba, who rejected the indoctrinating
statements made by the priest before his killing about how important it
would have been for him to get baptized before dying so that he would
have joined the other "Christians" in "Heaven". Hatuey responded that
he would have rather gone to Hell than spending his other life together
with his oppressors, thieves, and murderers. He eventually was
condemned to the stake for this.
In the territory that's now Ecuador, the great leader Calicuchima,
rather than accepting the baptism of the priest before his
condemnation, rebelled by walking towards the stake and, as the flames
encircled him, he screamed with all his might "PACHAKAMAK!" (the Great
Spirit Bringing Order to the Totality of Creation).
We should ask the Pope if God - whom he claims he represents - would
agree to those crimes against humanity. And we should also remind the
Head of the Church and the Spanish government that these kinds of
crimes are referred to neither in the earthly laws, nor in the divine
ones.
The Christian churches, and the Catholic Church especially, have an
enormous debt with Christ, with the poor people of the world and we,
the Native peoples and nationalities, have also had to undergo that
brutality. Although the Spanish State and the Vatican cannot compensate
anymore for the damages suffered as a consequence of the horrific
genocide, the Head of the Catholic Church should at least admit the
mistakes made, just as his predecessor John Paul II had done in
relation to the Nazi and the Holocaust, and he should learn from Jesus
Christ, who in order to express his message, he transformed himself in
the culture of the Jewish people respecting it fully and was consistent
with that whatever message he preached, no matter what the consequences.
It's inconceivable that in the 21st century, God still has to be defined
according to the European standards. The Pope should know that before
the Catholic priests and their Bibles reached our territories, our
people already had a God and his word is what supported the life of our
people and the Mother Earth. The word of God cannot be only contained
in a book, and no religion should try to privatize God.
We, the First Nations, were civilizations with governments and social
structures ordered according to our principles; we also had our own
religion with sacred books, rituals, male and female priests who were
the first to be killed by those who served the "god of greed" and not
the God of Love that Jesus Christ speaks about.
The Bible teaches that those who say they love God although they don't
see him and don't love their own brother that they can see, are liars.
The ones that desecrated the name of Christ, introducing themselves as
his representatives, while they truly were just thieves and murderers,
betrayed Christ' noble mission. How could they be representatives of
someone that was born in a stable, of humble parents, surrounded by
farmers and wanted dead or alive by the rulers of the time who held the
political, economic and religious power?
They couldn't possibly be representing someone who said that anyone
needs a roof over their head although he himself had no material
belongings.
How could these greedy people represent someone that sacrificed in the
name of humanity, so much so that he gave up his own life to reveal the
truth to the poor of the world.
These were not representatives of Jesus Christ; their "god" was blood
thirsty for human lives and for the richness exploited through violence
and they carried out the same horrible crimes that all prophets loathed
in the Bible!
It's only fair to remember and give credit to the lives of some priests,
which took the side of those they called "indios" in the face of so much
violence. People such as Bartolomi de las Casas and other Dominican
priests that defended the rights of our ancestors that had been stepped
upon. And it's also fair to remember and present our deepest respect to
all religious men and women, bishop and priests that gave their lives
to help the poor of our continent and of any other part of the world;
we are especially grateful to Monsignor Leonidas Proaqo who worked
honestly with the poor of Ecuador and served for the cause of the
liberation of the Native Peoples and Nationalities for more than 30
years.
The representatives of God today, of whichever Christian church, should
respect and revere life just as Jesus did. They have the ethical and
moral duty to condemn all injustice and have to deliver Jesus' message
while being at the service of the poor and not on the side of the
oppressors. And if they want to carry out a real evangelization of the
Native Peoples and Nationalities they have to deliver the authentic
message of Christ without trying to destroy our cultures, because
that's how He did it and that's whom they say they represent.
You cannot preach the message of Jesus Christ from the opulent point of
view, from the point of view of those who desecrate the life created by
God, from the point of the biggest destroyers of life on earth.
We reject the political and religious coincidences that exist between
Bush and the Pope in criminalizing the fight of the oppressed peoples.
We want consistency! The inconsistency of many who claim they are
representatives of Christ is what keeps people from going to church, and
especially the Catholic church - which seems to be such a concern for
the Pope.
We accept the message of hope, of love and of freedom of Jesus Christ.
We know that He said that he came for everybody to be alive and to have
an abundant life. What we do not accept is that in the name of whatever
religion they would come back and bless our deaths, that of our
children and that of millions of poor people of the world.
The Pope stated that "the utopia of revitalizing pre-Columbian
religions, separating them from that of Christ and of the universal
church, would not represent a step forward but a step backward for the
native peoples" who reached "a blend of their own culture and the
Christian faith which missionaries offered them".
We think the life of Jesus is the Great Light coming from Inti Yaya
(Paternal and Maternal Light that supports it all), whose aim is to
deter anything that doesn't let us live in justice and brotherhood
among human beings and in harmony with Mother Nature. We respect its
authentic followers.
Life taught us that "one can tell a tree from its fruits", as Christ
said and we can tell who serves the poor and who takes advantage of
them.
The Pope should note that our religions NEVER DIED, we learned how to
merge our beliefs and symbols with the ones of the invaders and
oppressors.
We keep on going to our temples, because we know that underneath the
main Catholic temples there used to be our sacred sites which have been
destroyed. With the excuse of building anew they tried to destroy our
beliefs but to no avail, since our temples had been built in which the
great forces get together reflecting: strength, wisdom and the love of
the great spirit, both father and mother of all the creatures living on
this beautiful planet.
We give our solidarity to our brother the President EVO MORALES, who
works for the poor, a human being that sacrificed his life for truth,
justice and fraternity between peoples and we are sure that Jesus
Christ considers him his FRIEND.
Our solidarity goes to HUGO CHAVEZ and with FIDEL CASTRO, socially
concerned Presidents that sacrificed themselves for a dignified life
for the people.
Our hearts are always with those who are, in whichever corner of the
world, working for a dignified life for everybody and for the health of
Allpa Mama (Mother Earth).
In the name of our ancestors who have been stepped upon and of the
million of us, poor people, of the continent of Abya Yala hoping to
have a dignified life for all, we renew our strong determination in
regaining our rights and we won't allow anybody to carry out another
genocide such as the one that started 514 years ago.
[Humberto Cholango is the President of the Confederation of the Kichwa
Nationality of Ecuador or Ecuarunari, the Most Numerous Organization of
Conaie (Council of Native Nationalities of Ecuador).]
Original Source in Spanish ALTERCOM Communicacisn para del Libertad
Tlaxcala- Translated into English by Benedetta Scardovi Mounier, a
member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity.
This translation is on Copyleft for any non-commercial use: verbatim
copy of the translation in its entirety may be freely reproduced,
respecting its integrity and citing the source, the author and the
translator.
================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
Search Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/htdig/search.html
List Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
Subscribe: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
================================================================
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