Steven Newcomb: Global movement to rescind church doctrine

Pope Francis—Jorge Mario Bergoglio—is 76 years old. He is the first pope from Latin America, the first Jesuit pope, and the first pope of our time not born in Europe. He is from Argentina, a region of the world colonized by the Spanish crown in the early 16th century on the basis of destructive papal documents issued by the Holy See in 1493. Brazil is a region of South America first colonized by the Portuguese crown on the basis of other such papal documents dating back to 1452.

One day in the Spring of 1992, I was inspired by the idea of calling upon Pope John Paul II to formally revoke the Inter Caetera papal bull of May 4, 1493. Shortly thereafter, at the Peace and the Planet conference in Eugene, Oregon, I met Birgil Kills Straight, a traditional headman of the Oglala Lakota Nation. He immediately understood the magnitude of my idea. He made plans for me to accompany him and Oglala singer Jackie Bird on a speaking tour in northern Italy that Fall. Now, twenty one years later, the campaign that we began on the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s first voyage is a global movement.