"Yearning for Christ" - The Ignorant Pope's Lame Half-Apology

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"Yearning for Christ" - The Ignorant Pope's Lame Half-Apology

Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit

sent by Tim Murphy

The Daily (Washngton.edu) - May 29, 2007

http://thedaily.washington.edu/article/2007/5/29/popeSaysIndigenousPeoplesYearnedForChrist

Pope says indigenous peoples yearned for Christ

By Jake Sommer

Last week, Pope Benedict XVI apologized to those who were offended by

his remark in Brazil earlier this month when he said "Christ was the

savior [America's natives] silently yearned for."

As many know, the evangelizing Spaniards and Portuguese Catholics who

came to the New World were responsible for the destruction of two

Native American empires, the Aztec and the Inca. With the conquest of

these civilizations, millions of Native Americans died from violence,

starvation and disease.

But Benedict's so-called apology (he didn't use the words apology or

forgiveness) was ambiguous. He said that it was impossible to "ignore

the suffering and the injustices inflicted by the colonizers on the

indigenous populations, [whose] fundamental human rights were often

trampled on," reported the Mercosur news agency.

What Benedict perhaps failed to note was that the Roman Catholic

Church was responsible for dividing the New World between the Spanish

and the Portuguese with the signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas. This

document granted Portugal rights to all land east of the 40th

meridian, including Africa and Brazil and everything west, the rest of

Latin America and the Philippines, to the Spanish. Of course, the

Spaniards and Portuguese had to pay for their divine rights, but the

Catholic Church was happy to oblige settling their dispute for the

fee.

Benedict, whose history might be excusable because of his upbringing

in Nazi Germany under Hitler, also proclaimed during his stay in

Brazil that "Christianity was not imposed by a foreign culture,"

leaving many to wonder how it was possible for such a high-ranking

world figure to make such a ludicrous and offensive statement.

Paulo Suess, an adviser to Brazil's Indian Missionary Council, was

quoted by the International Herald Tribune as saying Benedict "is a

good theologian, but it seems he missed some history classes."

Benedict has had a difficult time settling into the position of pope

over the past two years. The German pope was chosen to lead the

Catholic Church despite the presence of several non-European

candidates in an era when Catholicism is largely on the rise in Africa

as well as other parts of the third world.

Following his election, Benedict raised tensions between Western

faiths when he visited Auschwitz, the largest Nazi death camp,

neglected to mention that Jews had been murdered there and claimed

that responsibility for the Holocaust lay only with a small group of

criminals. Later, the pope raised tensions across the Muslim world

when he cited a Byzantine emperor's criticism of the Prophet Mohammed

without clarifying his own position in opposition to such a view.

Sure, it's possible that Benedict has made mistakes simply by

accident. Nevertheless, the frequency with which Benedict has offended

large portions of the Earth's population is disturbing.

The world changes very quickly today. It might be alright to call

someone Indian one year, Native American another but indigenous later

on. Benedict needs to accustom himself to life in a volatile world in

which ethnic, religious and class status greatly affect human

identity. No one wants to be offended, least of all by an old white

man who thinks he's holier than thou.

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