July 25, 2022
"I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples... I am sorry... I ask forgiveness, in particular..."
"... for the ways in which many members of the church and of religious communities cooperated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminated in the system of residential schools.... It is necessary to remember how the policies of assimilation and enfranchisement, which also included the residential school system, were devastating for the people of these lands... I thank you for making me appreciate this."
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I'm not impressed by people apologizing for what other people did.
Indigenous peoples and cowbogenous peoples.
Man...we are on a long trail to a world full of nothing but humans begging forgiveness for all other humans who came before them. Those we did not know, did not live in the same time with, and had nothing to do with, yet we are begging forgiveness as if we all were born with ownership of some past terrible deeds.
And if we're going down that path, there is no stopping point. There are no original 'nice guys' who didn't war with, steal from, or refuse to conquer others in front of them. It has been the struggle and/or the way of humans- even the so-called First Nations. Every one, every native culture in every land has a history somewhere of killing to take food, people, land, money, or just because.
Humans are terrible creatures. Our hard parts are how we emerged to take control of this planet in the manner we have. Learning over time to not repeat those things is the trick. We've not done that yet and I suspect we'll have another 100 or so years of apologies before we do.
Communist Pope. No surprise.
I still want know what happened to Ratzinger.
So when does he start sending out the apology checks?
It's hard to find good history for Native Americans before Europeans came. I started with Encyclopedia Britannica. There's not much, it's mostly after the whites showed up. I looked for books that would give me an objective picture of life in North America before 1492. They are hard to find. Almost all books about the Indians is how tragic it was that their wonderful way of life was ruined by settlers. The usual story today of people feeling sorry for themselves.
The best I've found is from The Teaching Company on native civilization in North America before whitey. As always with their lectures they are critical of the West and childlike sympathetic to cultures outside the West.
One nugget of truth came out: in most graves excavated by archeologist about 25% of the bones showed evidence of brutal violence. It was an extremally violent culture. Oh, and I'm sorry for the Christians who hurt them too.
The Peronista Pope apologizes to the decendants of victims on behalf of the decendants of alleged victimizers many of whom he does not represent - if he represents anyone - and who know a Marxist when they see one.
Very relevant.
In the Catholic faith, when you confess your sins and beg forgiveness, you also pray that whatever led you to this particular sin will be removed from your inclinations. Will the Pope be going to Ireland next? How about all the places McCarrick was moved to? I wouldn't mind this woke mea culpa if it indicated the Church had changed since then, or even cared about changing today.
This needs your "performative" tag.
I read this as an argument against compulsory (public) education.
While laudable, the Pope forgets the Spaniards didn't conquer the Americans all by themselves. They had plenty of indigenous support which only goes to show how horrible many of the indigenous were as rulers.
I'm so old, I remember when the pope was Catholic.
I can't wait for the comments on this one.
I can understand that the Pope might need some help understanding morality and ethics, so let me help you out there son:
You can't apologize
for something
you didn't do
$3.50 please
Saying sorry is one thing. Give half of all Church possessions to the poor and if they stole from anyone, give them back four times the amount. The Vatican is really lavish to think any apology is genuine repentance. The Pope and his leadership can live in dorms as befits their stations as servants of the servants.
Power corrupts.
It was thought to be a good idea at the time.
But, hey, Pope. You need to conduct a mission and reconvert Europe. Send in the Jesuit missionaries. What's Mass attendance like in Spain, Italy, France and Germany these days?
When I went on my pilgrimage to the birthplace of St. Ignatius Loyola, I asked people in the city square what bus to take to "St. Ignatius Loyola." They guys had never heard of him. The town was only about 40 miles away.
Europe is no longer Christian; much less Catholic.
Spoiler alert: there won't be forgiveness.
This will be used as a confession in the law enforcement sense, not the religious sense.
No civilization can claim to not have blood on their hands. Our entire species would owe the descendants of cro magnon an apology if our ancestors had left any alive. Various groups of indigenous people owe other groups of indigenous
people apologies for what was done to them. Europeans didn't invent evil, they just seem to be the only ones to feel bad about it.
I guess an argument can be made for such apologies. For certain, it won't change the way the church is viewed. Apologies never satisfy critics. They only embolden them. I have never seen an exception to this.
What a beta. I hope he made sure to point out that he capitalized the 'I' in indigenous while he made his speech. Was Benedict watching?
I humbly request indigenous people everywhere please repent and apologize for their crimes against other indigenous tribes, including slavery, rape, torture, genocide, and indiscriminate warfare.
For those who became civilized through contact with the white man, and received the benefits of technology, inventions, a written language, modern medicine, among many other blessings: you're welcome.
I don't get this begging for forgiveness for something you didn't do stuff.
Have leaders of the various indigenous peoples asked for forgiveness for the evil their people committed against other indigenous peoples?
Yet another reason I quit the Catholic Church. . . . .
"running boarding schools...and where many died." How many?
The problem with asking for forgiveness for others, in the eagerness to fall on your sword, is that you're basically judging them and convicting them of wrong. In fact, a lot of people being smeared here had nothing to do with any historical wrongs that did happen. It also promotes the idea of generational blood guilt, which is a wholly anti-Christian idea.
Of course he said this. He is a commie who wants to destroy Western civilization. The indigenous schools and orphanages were a complex issue. Many kids were taken from their families because they were being abused or seriously neglected by their families. Just like in Ireland.
Is it more damaging that some of them were abused by nuns or priests? Personally if I had to be abused as a child I’d rather it be someone I wasn’t related to. The majority of the kids were not abused in the church’s care while they were all being abused or severely neglected at home. Sexual and violent abuse of kids is still sky high in indigenous populations that have not integrated into western society. It wasn’t whitey who introduces those cultures to child abuse. I find it sadly amusing that people think it is better for your “own kind” to abuse you as a child than someone outside of your family group. Like it would be easier getting over how your father raped you than how some random priest did?!?!
Good for him! I wonder if he will ask Christians to stop their evil ways?
We have all done terrible things. But some more than others. And some have done more to atone than others.
Most indigenous tribes are slave holders.
The ones that aren't would have been if they won.
The first and only group to reject slavery in the world were protestant Christians in the US and Great Britain.
Every other culture and society in the world is morally inferior to Protestant Christianity.
Indigenous, correct. Social progress, forced assimilation, grooming, correct. Diversity [dogma], color blocs, affirmative discrimination, correct. Abortion, apparently so. Lose your liberal fetish... Good for him.
These universal apologies are foolish. People who committed no harm apologizing to people who were never harmed.
As foolish as reparations.
Now do South and Central America.
There is an different perspective on what has happened.
But, like January 6, election integrity, climate change, CRT, etc., it doesn't fit the narrative to give some people more power.
When do the Huron and Mohawk tribes apologize for torturing Jesuit missionaries to death?
Though not indigenous, my husband chose to go to a religious (not Catholic) boarding school in rural Alaska for high school because they offered a better education than the local off-road-system public school where his family was living when he turned 14. He graduated as one of the three white guys in his class. Many of the former students from that school are some of the most successful Natives in Alaska. The school closed in the mid-80's because they couldn't compete with free public schools. I think of all the people I know - pilots, doctors, teachers, nurses, business owners, pastors, and politicians - who graduated from that school when I read these apologies. Also the dedicated teachers who chose to live in an off-road-system rural Alaska village with it's inflated food prices and honey-buckets for toilets.
Not saying there shouldn't be apologies. But it feels like the Pope is apologizing for the very existence of these schools. It has a feeling of negating any good that was served at those schools. If that is the case there should be a comparable apology and radical reformation of the priesthood within the Catholic church for it's past sins.
"Many died" but they weren't murdered or delibrately killed. People died back in the old days of disease. Unlike today. As for sexual abuse, English schoolboys at Eaton were "Sexually abused" in the 19th century and early 20th century. So, I'm not sure why that's important.
There have been terrible Popes before, so this too shall pass.
Though not indiginous, my husband chose to go to a religious (not Catholic) boarding school in rural Alaska for high school because they offered a better education than the local off-road-system public school where his family was living when he turned 14. He graduated as one of the three white guys in his class. Many of the former students from that school are some of the most successful Natives in Alaska. The school closed in the mid-80's because they couldn't compete with free public schools. I think of all the people I know - pilots, doctors, teachers, nurses, business owners, pastors, and politicians - who graduated from that school when I read these apologies. Also the dedicated teachers who chose to live in an off-road-system rural Alaska village with it's inflated food prices and honey-buckets for toilets.
Not saying there shouldn't be apologies. But it feels like the Pope is apologizing for the very existence of these schools. If that is the case there should be a comparable apology and radical reformation of the priesthood within the Catholic church for it's past sins.
Did he apologize for deposing the Aztecs and their human-sacrifice cult that used captured subject peoples as offerings? The Spanish actually facilitated a war of national liberation for all the nations living in terror of the Aztec body snatchers.
And what about the evils done by non-Christians to indigenous Europeans, in Europe? Vikings, corsairs, (real) Nazis, Commies? Anyone ever apologize to a Pope for that?
Heck, he could even claim credit for Romero and the other liberation-theology clerics who helped meztisos and full-blooded Indians get out from under white regimes in Latin America. Fake Christians oppressed them - real Christians freed them. Overly simplistic, but no more so than this grovelling.
“Is the Pope Catholic?” - no longer a rhetorical question.
JSM
Never apologize. Never explain.
He apologizes for the church's role in running schools?
I just listen to a JBP podcast with a young entrepreneurial from Senegal. I think she has a much better understanding and scope of history.
Back to schools; it would be good if the left cared about the sexual abuse happening in US schools. At least acknowledging would go along way to ending the abuse. However, even with the dangers it is now; I see no reason to apology for the notion of running schools. Maybe apologize for running them to promote drag shows but not for having them as schools.
Of course Christians and Europeans have committed many sins against indigenous people in the Americas. And that should be acknowledged.
But where is the acknowledgment of the sins that various indigenous peoples in the Americas have committed against one another? Or the sins committed by the peoples in Africa or Asia?
Was it the "sexual and physical abuse" or the proselytizing for which Pope Francis was begging forgiveness? Both I hope.
I doubt that a judge and jury trying such a case today would let the various popes and their minions off with an, "I'm sorry."
Should have apologized for Christopher Columbus unleashing Christian in the New World while he was at it
"Hey, we're really sorry we raped and murdered your kids, since, ya know, we apparently got caught. Whoopsie!" - Pope McPopePoper "Soooo, we're all good now right? Ya'll can start giving us money again."
Can somebody point me to anything the Catholic Church has ever done for the good of people? That we can all look at and say, yes, sure there's some bad ones, but overall so much other good is being done that we should overlook this little thing.
Because I certainly can't find it. In any organized religion.
Indigenous people, please feel free to reject the evils introduced by the White Man, electricity, air conditioning, antibiotics…..well you get the picture.
Should have apologized for Christopher Columbus unleashing Christian in the New World while he was at it
Pope Francis should write a book entitled, “How to Climb the Ladder of Success in Today’s Catholic Church: Clichés.”
Another apology tour…
Take the hit for sexual abuse within the church, since you’re it’s leader now, but leave out all the other garbage about “projects of cultural destruction” and “forced assimilation” and policies of “assimilation and enfranchisement”.
Good lord! Why the hell are you apologizing for such things?
The Pope should be apologizing for the Catholic Church, if he’s of a mind to. He’s not The Leader of Christians, so he’s presumptuous in thinking he can - or should - speak for them.
While he’s at it he should beg forgiveness from Protestants for the European Wars of Religion. He can beg forgiveness for the Spanish Inquisition (not to mention for the bad Monty Python skits). Maybe we should cut him some slack over burning witches because Protestants did that too.
I'm not offended by Francis' apology.
"Can somebody point me to anything the Catholic Church has ever done for the good of people?"
The Jesuit high schools and colleges in the United States are a powerful force for the good of the people.
So the Pope is apologizing for what may well be imaginary crimes? https://nypost.com/2022/05/27/kamloops-mass-grave-debunked-biggest-fake-news-in-canada/
Indigenous people, please feel free to reject the evils introduced by the White Man, electricity, air conditioning, antibiotics…..well you get the picture.
Not to mention smallpox, measles, influenza, cholera, and a whole bunch more. The native population of the continental U.S. was at least 9 million (some scholars put it as high as 30 million). By 1900, it was down to 250,000. Then we (the governments of the U.S. and Canada) spent another 60 or 70 years "assimilating" them by destroying their culture and kidnapping their children.
Was the Catholic religion a motive or incidental to its progress? Most human and civil rights violations, including: slavery, diversity [dogma], political congruence, grooming, abortion, etc. were and are committed for secular causes.
Huh, I was just reading about the Residential schools in Canada this morning. This article, in fact, which had been linked to in another article on Quillette about how anyone has yet to show that those unmarked graves that were all the rage last year are actual graves.
https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/number-indian-residential-school-student-deaths-may-never-known-trc/
Anyway, from that article, here are some numbers to help quantify the problem. 3,201 deaths from among 150,000 students over 100 years. So, about 2% mortality. Most of those deaths were from disease (mostly tuberculosis) and most occurred before 1940.
The article does say in the 1940's the death rate in residential schools was five times higher than the average population, and down to twice as high by the 60's. Of course, the impact of that was lessened for me a bit when it immediately says that the regular Indigenous population also had high death rates. But that's all the "effects of being colonized" according to the report.
Which makes me wonder. What was the average life expectancy of the Indigenous people before and after colonization?
I still want know what happened to Ratzinger.
Commie pope or Nazi pope? Which is better?
So, he's kind of like the Groomer-in-Chief apologizing for all the grooming that used to go on.
It was an extremally violent culture. Oh, and I'm sorry for the Christians who hurt them too.
And European culture (well into the twentieth century) wasn't. The most destructive wars in history were started by Europeans. Heck, go back to the thirty years war, which killed upwards of 50% of the population in some regions.
And the British continued to draw, hang and quarter people well into the 18th century.
For a history of the American continents prior to 1492, I like Prehistory of the Americas, by archaeologist Stuart J. Fiedel, e.g., Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, 1992. It's getting a bit obsolete now with regard to the pre-Clovis period (beyond 10,000 years back), but in general, I think, it's excellent.
Blogger Robert Cook said...
Good for him! I wonder if he will ask Christians to stop their evil ways?
The communist commenter just loves the communist Pope. News at 11.
The real bad guys for the Pope and others of his ilk are the IndoEuropeans. They invented the wheel, domesticated horses and spread their Y chromosome all over Europe, Iran and northern India.
The Amerindians ate their horses, had no wheel and killed each other.
"Can somebody point me to anything the Catholic Church has ever done for the good of people?"
Oh.I don't know. Mother Theresa? Does she count as "anything"?
the elephant in the room: The question if outsiders should teach and give locals education so that they can adjust to the modern world.
The assumption here is that this is "cultural destruction", and that native cultures should be left alone.
Ah, but you know what country did that? South Africa. This was the idea behind apartheid.
Yes, apologize for abuse in boarding schools, but this visit is a farce, because he is apologizing for what folks thought was the best policy, given the extreme poverty of the indigenous, whose traditional way of life was no longer an option.
Of course, the impact of that was lessened for me a bit when it immediately says that the regular Indigenous population also had high death rates. But that's all the "effects of being colonized" according to the report.
So as long as the death rate is only a little higher than the general population, removing children from their families, forcibly destroying their culture and language, is a-okay with you?
Are all political apologies bullshit?
This one seems so. He is so sorry for things that happened half a world away and 200 years ago. “”Sell all that you have and give to the poor” somebody said. Is he going to liquidate the vast wealth that the Vatican has accumulated to atone for past mistakes?
My read is that he simply wants to look contrite. How about an apology for present day mistakes - directly to the victims?
Apparently the big victory on abortion took the wind out of Pope Che's sails. Maybe made it apparent that he ought to get out there to remind and encourage the flock that they are supposed to work for democratic measures to oppose abortion. Time to stir up some old grievances to get the lefties back on his side.
Or maybe I misjudge. Perhaps he is suggesting that schools attempting to groom young children for sex is a really bad thing, especially if said students and their parents have no real choice in the matter. One can hope.
"And European culture (well into the twentieth century) wasn't."
Again, every culture has blood on its hands. Apologizing for it seems to be a European thing.
Hey, I've had the genetic tests and my ancestors were PERFECT. It's science, and each and every one of you people owes me an apology in the form of cash reparations.
Actually, it's probably only the Neanderthal (who you callin' a hominid?) quantum in my genes that was perfect. For Neanderthals, anyway.
Only Christian leaders go on these absurd "apology tours". The same with US Presidents. "hey can I apologize for something from the past? asks joe Biden as part of the trip planning.
There's something deeply cucky and weird about the Westerners.
If it was actually motivated by a humane desire to help other people, I might have less contempt for it. But its just virtue signaling.
Freder Frederson, the narrative about the Residential schools is that they led to increased mortality among the children attending. I don't have to spell out further why the mortality rate being similar in the general Indigenous population cuts against that narrative, do I?
Freder Frederson, the narrative about the Residential schools is that they led to increased mortality among the children attending. I don't have to spell out further why the mortality rate being similar in the general Indigenous population cuts against that narrative, do I?
Many indigenous people accepted Christianity on principle. Many allied with Americans, French, Spanish, or others with common cause, often to balance the distribution of force in the indigenous population, to preserve their viability.
Once again a post becomes an invitation for anti-Catholic bigotry. And ignorant and stupid as ever.
Can somebody point me to anything the Catholic Church has ever done for the good of people?
Does Western Civilization count for anything? Although, admittedly, the left would call that a negative too. Hospitals, universities, Europe, science, legal systems -- these are a few things that developed because of the Catholic Church.
There really needs to be two full-time popes. One to do the normal pope things, and one to apologize for all the horrors the church caused over the past 2000 years.
The assumption here is that this is "cultural destruction", and that native cultures should be left alone. Ah, but you know what country did that? South Africa
That, and to mitigate the progressive conflict between the Zulu and Mandela's Xhosa. But, globalist interest won, South Africa was invaded and overthrown for social justice and natural resources, and the conflict between Zulu, Xhosa, and natives is sustained in darkness.
A suitable religion (i.e. morality, ethics, law - behavioral protocol) for men and women capable of self-moderation. Competing interests to mitigate the progress of others running amuck. Principles matter.
So as long as the death rate is only a little higher than the general population, removing children from their families, forcibly destroying their culture and language, is a-okay with you?
Beginning from perfect ignorance, Field Marshall Freder speaks up for primitive culture that did not figure out the wheel and ate the horses instead of domesticating them. The "Nobel Savage" persists in the literature consumed by ahistorical idiots.
I had listened to an interview w/a couple of indigenous women. I believe they had gone to Rome and had a personal audience w/the Pope. Maybe on NPR, but I don’t listen often anymore.
I know a lot of movie/series portrayals are not exactly spot- on- but, to apologize for ‘evil’ perpetrated by Christians- in the name of Christ- was the least that a Pope could do.
As to the good of a religion- hospitals, colleges, idk… proLife centers.
Human frailty and nature taint everything.
Religious and nonreligious, alike.
Freder can’t vent his twisted spleen fast enough, history knows the great Khan conquered most of known western civilization.
Various muslim warlords took over most of Western Europe. You are a simple-minded marxist charlatan.
“… because he is apologizing for what folks thought was the best policy, given the extreme poverty of the indigenous, whose traditional way of life was no longer an option.”
I think it’s more than that. Everyone pig piles onto the Catholic Church. That’s so very counter-productive, especially w/out knowing all sides of a story.
"cultural destruction and forced assimilation"
So trying to convert the heathens, bring them to Jesus and the Church, and thereby save their souls is now a bad thing?
Native Americans — at least the elites of Mexico — were familiar with the principle of the wheel. Wheeled toys from the Mesoamerican Classic period have been found in places such as Veracruz. The problem with non-toy wheels being employed there is that there were no animals of a size capable of hauling wheeled vehicles present then in Mexico to be domesticated. Horses — together with 31 other genera of large mammals, a.k.a. megafauna — had been extinct in America (and yes, probably the hands of humans, though a very different culture) for nearly 10,000 years. Bison didn't extend so far south; deer who did reside in Mexico were apparently unsuitable (nobody has succeeded in domesticating deer).
Also, if it weren't for the Catholic Church, that never-did-anything-good-for-anybody institution, you all right now would be Muslim. And quite possibly still in Europe.
You're welcome.
Even as the USA expanded west from where the original settlers landed until it took over California from the Spaniards, not the Indians, the various tribes kept migrating, fighting, killing and torturing each other- along with American settlers. Indian culture thrived on violence against others who were similarly equipped, but not as skilled. And who was the most skilled at that type of constant war kept changing.
Most of the East Coast coastal Indians no longer exist as tribes because as time went on they melted into the immigrant population armed with iron and muskets. If they hadn't and had tried to migrate West, they'd have run into the Iroquois Confederacy or other tribes who would simply have killed, tortured, and/or enslaved them.
In South and Central America, in virtually no time flat by historical standards for any war, a Spanish expeditionary force defeated the Aztec Empire. Not the combined armies of Spain in a massive operation- a small expeditionary force, with local allies who didn't particularly like the Aztecs and saw the Spanish as the lesser of two evils and united with them. After all, the Spanish didn't tear out the hearts of their young and eat them.
Christianity has nothing to apologize for in the colonization of the Americas. All tribes in the Americas (except, maybe, the Inuit) practiced ritual torture, human sacrifice, slavery, etc., and those societies and practices needed to be destroyed. Those tribes that didn't practice those things, assuming there were a few? They were destroyed by those that did.
Masscon said...
So the Pope is apologizing for what may well be imaginary crimes? https://nypost.com/2022/05/27/kamloops-mass-grave-debunked-biggest-fake-news-in-canada/
7/25/22, 5:06 PM
THIS is what I have been wondering. So, the dopey Pope is Woke. He follows the propaganda like any good Wokey does.
https://ai360.aristotle.com/public/AI360EmailTracking/Clickthrough.aspx?cdbID=a2165fa2-387a-4e39-8363-2076eac843b6&mactID=5c26c3fa-3a27-4f4d-9c8e-2b1088ffb5be&atvID=e1402185-1a49-43b9-bae2-e4c894958c1e
A long link to a short video explaining Pope Francis’ trip to Canada and why.
"'Can somebody point me to anything the Catholic Church has ever done for the good of people?'
"Oh.I don't know. Mother Theresa? Does she count as 'anything?'"
Christopher Hitchens would say "anything" would have been better than Mother Theresa, as he thought she was worse than nothing.
"So trying to convert the heathens, bring them to Jesus and the Church, and thereby save their souls is now a bad thing?"
Certainly, to those who do not agree we have "souls" or that there is any "salvation" necessary (or possible), as they deny there is a paradisaical afterlife to which we must earn entrance, and to those who think it is wrong to forcibly impose a belief system on others by force and terror.
All history must be relitigated. Athens or Sparta?
Cookie:"Christopher Hitchens would say "anything" would have been better than Mother Theresa, as he thought she was worse than nothing."
I will take the feedback from 60 years of children and adults from areas of sxtraordinary abject poverty such as Calcutta over 1 dude's opinion who looked like he never missed a meal in his life.
But you do you comrade.
Various muslim warlords took over most of Western Europe. You are a simple-minded marxist charlatan.
I just love it when people accuse me of being a Marxist or communist, as though that is some alien concept in opposition to Western civilization.
Here's a fucking reveal for you, Marxism is a western philosophy, born out of the same philosophical tradition that gave you all your capitalist philosophies.
The "Nobel Savage" persists in the literature consumed by ahistorical idiots.
Your spelling is appalling. First, I had to tell you how to properly spell "marshall", now, apparently you don't know the difference between "Nobel" and "noble".
Although it does raise a great point. Alfred Nobel founded his prizes because he felt regret about creating explosives that greatly increased the killing power of armies.
Limited Perspective @2:23
"1491", Charles Mann. It's a fascinating, exhaustive and controversial read about the Americas before Columbus.
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