Putting the Pope's "Penitential Pilgrimage" to "Canada" in Context

"“Reconciliation fails Indigen­ous people, and all of Canada, because it rests on a legal house of cards—the morally reprehensible Doctrine of Discovery.” - Bruce McIvor

Pope Francis’ death has brought recollections in the media about his July 2022 visit to Canada, billed as a “Penitential Pilgrimage” to the Original Peoples of that land. The event is being recalled as one of the Pope’s major accomplishments.

The highlight of the Pilgrimage was Francis’ “apology” for the Catholic Church’s role in the infamous Indian-residential-school system that maimed, killed, and “converted” thousands of Indigenous children in the name of Christian Civilization, inflicting deep injuries on the Peoples from which these children were taken. The Pope said he was there not only to apologize but to “reconcile” the Church and Original Peoples.

The Pope did not fulfill what many people had asked for: Rescission of the underlying “Doctrine of Christian Discovery” announced by Pope Alexander VI in the 1493 Bull Inter Caetera:

We,… by the authority of Almighty God… do… give, grant, and assign forever to you and your heirs and successors, kings of Castille and León, all and singular the aforesaid countries and islands… provided however they at no time have been in the actual temporal possession of any Christian owner…."

In October 2022, Redthought.org — “a Journey of Right & Respectful Relations” — presented a detailed historical and theological analysis of the Pilgrimage, the “apology”, and “reconciliation”.

Here is a short (1:42) movie of the slides that we used in the presentation:

JoDe Goudy, founder and director of Redthought, produced a two-hour video excerpt from the live online presentation. Here it is on Vimeo:

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The “Christian Discovery” claim of a right of Domination is still the foundation of property law in the US, Australia, New Zealand… and Canada.

Witness this 2004 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada:

“This process of reconciliation flows from the Crown's duty of honourable dealing toward Aboriginal peoples, which arises in turn from the Crown's assertion of sovereignty over an Aboriginal people and de facto control of land and resources that were formerly in the control of that people.”

Haida Nation v. British Columbia Minister of Forests, 2004 (Supreme Court of Canada)

Si Pih Ko, standing in front of the Pope singing in Cree, a language that was forbidden in boarding schools. She later said she wanted to send a message to the chiefs as well as the Pope: “In order for us to heal you need to remove what you brought here….That law. Because it doesn’t belong on these territories – our law does.”

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