The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy
The “doctrine of discovery” is not part of the teaching of the Catholic Church. Historical research clearly demonstrates that the papal documents in question, written in a specific historical period and linked to political questions, have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith. At the same time, the Church acknowledges that these p
... See moreRobert P. Jones • The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy
How can we meaningfully respond to being beneficiaries of a crime so plain it cannot be denied and so large it can never be fully righted?
Robert P. Jones • The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy
Dum Diversas, the initial edict that laid the theological and political foundations for the Doctrine, was issued by Pope Nicholas V on June 18, 1452. It explicitly granted Portuguese king Alfonso V the following rights:
Robert P. Jones • The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy
the Doctrine claims that European civilization and western Christianity are superior to all other cultures, races, and religions.
Robert P. Jones • The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy
Today I am here, in this land that, along with its ancient memories, preserves the scars of still open wounds. I am here because the first step of my penitential pilgrimage among you is that of again asking forgiveness, of telling you once more that I am deeply sorry. Sorry for the ways in which, regrettably, many Christians supported the colonizin
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The return of Columbus in 1493 also precipitated the culmination of one of the most fateful but unacknowledged theological developments in the history of the western Christian Church: the Doctrine of Discovery.
Robert P. Jones • The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy
Established in a series of fifteenth-century papal bulls (official edicts that carry the full weight of church and papal authority),
Robert P. Jones • The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy
The Doctrine of Discovery was formally incorporated into US law in 1823 in Johnson v. M’Intosh, which held, by unanimous decision, that “discovery gave [the US government] an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or conquest.”
Robert P. Jones • The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy
to give America a new genesis: not 1776, when British colonies and slavery were well established, but 1619, the year a group of Africans were brought against their will to the British territories.