Steven Newcomb. Photo from Finding the Missing Link
The Doctrine of Christian Discovery, the legal principle that justified the taking of Indian land, is alive and well despite claims to the contrary by The Vatican, argues Steven Newcomb (Shawnee / Lenape) of the Indigenous Law Institute:
On November 25, 2015, the Holy See (‘the Vatican’) appeared before the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). Responding to an intervention on the doctrine of discovery by the Apache-Ndee-Nee Working Group, CERD member Carlos Manuel Vazquez asked the Holy See to clarify its position on the papal document Inter caetera of 1493, and the doctrine of discovery. Mr. Vazquez requested that a repeal of the papal bull “be discussed at the high-level meeting scheduled to take place in Rome between the Pope and representatives of indigenous peoples” (CERD/C/SR.2395, Report of December 1, 2015, p. 8). Archbishop Tomasi responded for the Holy See. He said that the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal “effectively” made the papal bull “inoperative.” “Changing the historical consequences of the ideology reflected in those instruments would thus require changing the Treaty rather than the papal bull,” remarked Tomasi (p. 8). In law, the term “inoperative” generally means “without practical force, invalid.” If the Holy See is correct, it should be impossible to find evidence that the Crown of Castile, or other governments, have considered the Inter Caetera papal bull operative after 1494. If the Crown of Castile or other governments have regarded the Inter catera bull as still operative after 1494, then the Holy See’s claim to the CERD is clearly false.Get the Story:
Steven Newcomb: The Holy See’s Whopper of a Falsehood at the UN (Indian Country Today 2/16)
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