Volume LIII, No 6
February,
2000
Undoing Institutional Racism:
A Jubilee Call to Revoke Inter Cetera
Peter Jan Yuslum
At the Parliament of World Religions in 1994, over 60 indigenous delegates called upon Pope John II to formally revoke the Inter Cetera Bull of May 4, 1493, claiming that it ... "called for our Nations and Peoples to be subjugated.... The U.S. Supreme Court rulings adopted the same principle of subjugation expressed in Inter Cetera. This Papal Bull has been, and continues to be, devastating to our religions, our cultures, and the survival of our populations." Peter Yuslum provides us with more information on this petition, and an opportunity to sign on to it.
Columbus Day, October 12, is an event which has been etched in the minds of school children for generations throughout the United States. It is portrayed as a glorious event in which Mr. Columbus "discovered the New World." This story is what all of us who grew up and were educated in this country were exposed to with little, if any, counterpoints to debate.
Because of our exposure to such perceptions of historical events, many Americans believe that we can turn to historians to record the truth about the United States and/or Western Civilization. History, by definition, is a compilation of human and natural events that happen to people and nations. It is the oldest of the social sciences which is the record, as historian Rauke put it," of what has actually happened." Such a belief in historians can serve to compound and perpetuate the untruths, deceptions, and/or exclusions we have been told in our history classes in elementary, middle, and high school, as well as in college level courses. As one individual in the aftermath of Desert Storm wrote in a letter to the editor of the New York Times put it, "any good (my emphasis) historian will tell you, that history often distorts the past to portray the present ... or a person’s perception of it.
The struggle to tell the truth has been around as long as people have been recording history. It is interesting to see how a historian such as Edmund Morris has struggled to portray a historical account of Ronald Reagan in his authorized biography of the ex-president. To me, the irony of his struggle is that Morris unwittingly resorted to a course of action he thought was novel. In reality, historians have been using Forrest Gump tactics to inform their audiences/students by superimposing fantasy into the realities of the events which involved people of color for eons. Somehow, Americans seem to be able to handle historical accounts better if it is entertaining. As Maureen Dowd explains, "we have become a culture of morphing. Entertainment has overwhelmed the truth, and the universities are riddled with professors who deny that objectivity is possible."
Warning! The following material is not intended to entertain ... for some Americans, this material could be hazardous to their perceptions of self- righteousness!
The truth of the matter is that Columbus "bumped" into a world that had been inhabited for thousands of years. He fell into the proverbial bucket and came out smelling like a rose. Imagine if Chris would have caught Queen Isabella on a bad hair day and had to report back to her and King Ferdinand that he got lost! They probably would have been terribly upset if Columbus came home empty-handed after they dipped into the royal coffers to finance his venture to travel to the East by sailing west. Although historians credit Christopher Columbus with discovering the New World, he had a little help from some of his friends who were of a similar mindset, including the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church, for its part, had a profound effect on how military, political, and economic decisions would impact the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Africa. The Church, under the leadership of her popes, mirrored the mindset, the prejudices and pomposity, or in short, the cultural racism of the day in Europe. This mindset promoted the belief that Europeans, especially those from nations held power, were superior to non-baptized masses which by and large included people of color. European powers of the time such as Portugal and Spain began their explorations to find new trade routes and markets.
Two popes issued papal bulls which more or less sanctioned a mindset of superiority. A bull is an agreement between a pope and a civil government to regulate the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church within that state. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued a bull to King Alfonso V of Portugal. This bull called on the king "to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ." Pope Nicholas directed Alfonso to take away and convert the non-Christians’ possessions and property, "and reduce their persons to perpetual slavery."
The Papal Bull of 1493 was in direct line with Pope Nicholas V’s bull. This document, also known as Inter Cetera , was issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493. It expressed the pope’s desire that "barbarous nations" those discovered and yet to be discovered, be "subjugated" and brought to the Catholic faith and the Christian religion. In this way, the "Christian Empire" would be perpetuated.
So, why should we make such a fuss over some documents that are over 500 years old? Aren’t these bulls just yellowed and cracked pieces of parchment that probably got shoved into some forgotten drawer? If this were the case, there would be no need to draw attention to them. Inter Cetera provided a precedent for United States government policies regarding the treatment of Native Americans and allowed the slavery of Africans to continue for almost a hundred after the founding of this country. European powers that settled and colonized the Americas were likewise influenced by this bull. Inter Cetera seemingly facilitated the beliefs (prejudices) that Native Americans and African were less than human and were accepted as savage peoples.
Columbus Day serves to perpetuate these beliefs about people of color to this day. Certainly, Christopher Columbus wasted no time in responding to Pope Alexander VI’s desire to subjugate these "savage," non-Christian people. In his quest to obtain gold from places in the Caribbean, he would crucify 13 "Indians" at a time when they failed to produce their quota of riches for Spain. They were crucified in honor of Christ and the twelve apostles. On a good day, Columbus might have spared the lives of these people by just cutting off their hands. We have to remember that Chris could not afford to return to Spain empty-handed.
Five hundred years later, Native Americans are still being pressured to give up what resources they have on tribal lands in order to fulfill the American Dream. Such resources include but are not limited to oil, various precious ores, and fishing rights. Even into the 1990’s, David Sohappy, Sr. of the Yakima Tribe in the Pacific Northwest has fought to fish salmon in the Columbia River as his ancestors did for generations. The government has claimed that Sohappy was over-fishing the river. Sohappy has become an international symbol in the struggle to preserve the rights of indigenous peoples. The Shoshone Tribe has been struggling for years to reclaim their tribal lands in the Nevada desert. The United States government uses this land for nuclear armament testing. While I am not a proponent of gambling, I do take issue with state governments which try to get a slice of the pie from revenues generated through tribally operated casinos on reservations, These states had little interest in these sovereign nations until the casinos were successful sources of revenue for the tribes which operated them,
It is not enough that federal and state governments and private entities have been attempting for years to hoard the resources which rightfully belong to various tribes. There have been instances in which Native American places of worship have been coveted by the dominant culture. When Columbus arrived in the Caribbean, there were millions of people inhabiting what is now North and South America. Today, the descendants of the original inhabitants of these lands have been reduced to living on a relatively small number of reservations. Some of the lands affected by the influx of Europeans over the past 500 years are regarded as sacred to various tribes. Two such places come to mind which have been exploited by the greed of outsiders — the Black Hills (Paha Sapa) in South Dakota and Mt. Graham in Arizona. These areas are considered as sacred to the Lakota and the Apaches respectively. Imagine how well Christians in this country would react to Native Americans taking over Jerusalem for their own "use."
The Jesuit missionary, Father Pierre Jean DeSmet, had visited among the Yankton Sioux Tribe in the late 1830’s. He knew early on about the presence of precious ores in the Black Hills. Father DeSmet told these people to hide the knowledge of gold from the white man. He foretold that men would come "like locusts" to devour this sacred land. This secret would be kept from the white man for about another thirty years. Just as with many other treaties signed by whites and various tribes, the Treaty of 1868 signed by the U. S. Government and the Lakota at Fort Laramie meant little to the former when it was learned that gold was found in the Black Hills. George Armstrong Custer led an expedition to survey gold findings in the Black Hills in 1874 in defiance of this treaty. Compensation for the Black Hills, as to what was due the Lakotas, has been in dispute for years after prospectors and other settlers swarmed these sacred hills.
In another instance, a dispute over Mt. Graham emerged in the early 1990’s when a joint effort between the Vatican Observatory and the University of Arizona began to make plans to erect an observatory on this mountain. Mt. Graham is sacred to the Apaches just as the Black Hills are to the Lakota. In Chapter 25 of the Book of Leviticus justice and God’s creation are intimately connected. The sacredness of this mountain is seemingly being dismissed by some who would like to believe that unless holy water is sprinkled on the ground or a statue of a saint is erected, a place not associated with the Christian faith cannot be holy. Native Americans have long recognized that whatever Creator or Wakan Tanka has created is holy in and of itself. Wakan Tanka was the sum of all that was considered mysterious, powerful, and sacred.
The belief that Native Americans were a violent and savage people was perpetuated throughout the first one hundred years of this country’s existence. According to Warren’s Primary Geography printed in Philadelphia in 1886, we are told that the states of society are divided into four classes: "Savage, Barbarous, Half-Civilized, and Civilized." As one might surmise, savages are the lowest and most degraded class. According to this book, ‘the Indian and most of the ‘negro’ tribes are savages.’ People of the "yellow" and "brown" races "fared" somewhat better in this classification by "passing" for Barbarous tribes and Half-Civilized Peoples. At the top of this classification we have the Civilized People "who are more powerful and more advanced in knowledge than any other class." To no one’s surprise, Warren’s book tells us "almost all civilized people belong to the white race." This book was used in American schools and influenced the minds of children with these prejudices.
Perpetrating these beliefs or prejudices can find some roots in the Papal Bulls of 1452 and 1493. Native Americans were viewed as a threat to the "American Way of Life". Namely, Americans were pursuing Manifest Destiny, claiming gold and silver, and right of ways for railroads. Native Americans took up arms to protect themselves from being crushed out of existence. Their way of life was ironically considered "uncivilized." Never mind historical events such as Sand Creek in Colorado and Wounded Knee in South Dakota. The Trail of Tears speaks volumes about how indigenous people were treated. There were many such trails for Native Americans.
On November 29, 1864, Colonel J. M. Chivington led the Colorado militia in an early morning ambush on a Cheyenne camp along Sand Creek. Prior to this raid, he had some harsh words for some of his officers who were not so eager or willing to join in the ambush. Chivington told them, "damn any man who sympathizes with Indians. I have come to kill Indians and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians." When the dust settled, over one hundred Cheyenne children, women, and elderly were massacred by Chivington and his men. The massacre did not stop with the slaying of the Cheyenne but continued with the mutilation of their bodies. The genitals of some Cheyenne were cut off their bodies and were disposed of in unspeakable ways. The massacre of over three hundred Minneconjous at Wounded Knee, South Dakota on December 29,1890 effectively ended the Native Americans’ struggles to live as their ancestors did. As historians recorded, the "Battle of Wounded Knee" symbolically ended the "Indian Wars." A word here and a word there can serve to distort these events so that school children can take pride in their American Heritage. Historians, for the most part, did not record this era with much criticism.
Such a lack of questioning appears to have been in line with the precedent set by the Papal Bull of 1493, resulting in such U. S. government policies in its dealings with indigenous peoples. Public attitudes during this period of the "Indian Wars" supported the extermination of Native Americans. In the aftermath of the Wounded Knee slaughtering of Chief Big Foot and his band of Minneconjous of the Lakota, there was a public outcry about the "sloppiness" with which the 7th Cavalry handled this event. The editor of the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer wrote a critical review about the 7th Cavalry’s performance at Wounded Knee. (Remember, the 7th Cavalry was the unit led by George Armstrong Custer when it was defeated by a coalition of Lakota and Cheyenne Tribes at Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876.) On January 3, 1891, the editor wrote, "our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth." About ten years later this editor, L. Frank Baum, would write the American classic The Wizard of Oz.
The Minneconjous who were killed at Wounded Knee were buried in a mass grave in front of Sacred Heart Church. There is a larger cemetery located behind this church. The mass grave and the cemetery are in stark contrast to places such as Arlington and Gettysburg National Cemeteries. One moves about the manicured graves at Arlington and Gettysburg with ease while the grave sites at Wounded Knee have an almost forgotten appearance about them. As I once stood in front of the mass grave, I reflected on the events of December 29,1890, how so many children, women, and elderly died such an unspeakable death without any significant public outcry against such injustice. One might argue about who fired the first shot but, regardless of how it began, no one can justify the carnage which took place. Many of these victims attempted to get out of harm’s way but were chased down and shot by the soldiers some distance from where these people were camped. The 7th Cavalry suffered over two dozen casualties, most of which were the result of friendly fire from their own troops. The irony of this tragic event is that over 20 soldiers were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their action.
Notwithstanding my exposure to history courses throughout my academic experience, I never read or was told about comments such as those Mr. Baum wrote in his newspaper. These comments appeared in the Northeast Indian Quarterly in the Spring 1990 issue as a commentary by Professor Robert K. Venables. Despite messages like Baum’s, historians generally glorified this period in our history with respect to the westward expansion of the U. S. frontier.
Africans brought to the shores of the Americas to be enslaved, and their descendants, have endured untold suffering — such suffering most white Americans would have difficulty appreciating. Again, Warren’s Primary Geography classified most African tribes among the "Savage" people. The United States once defined the status of African slaves as being equal to three-fifths of a human being; and that was only to aid the South in representational equity in Congress. Slaves were still denied all basic human rights guaranteed to white Americans. Even as late as 1857, slaves suffered political, as well as physical, emotional, economic, and social deprivations. The Dred Scott Decision rendered by the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed the status of slaves in that year. Slave "rebellions" and other attempts to break free from the chains of enslavement by and large failed up to the time of the Civil War. It was not until the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were adopted that men of African descent were defined as equal.
Native Americans, likewise, were excluded in the Constitution. It took a civil suit filed in U. S. District Court for the District of Nebraska in 1879 to declare the Indian was fully human within the meaning of the law. Therefore, the military had no special privileges in peacetime to deny Indians constitutional protection against imprisonment without due cause. This suit involved the case of Standing Bear, a member of the Ponca Tribe. Standing Bear refused to be moved about at the whim of the U. S. Army. General William T. Sherman did all in his power to negate this ruling by defying the orders of the presiding federal judge. The Constitution has not even yet recognized the citizenship of Native American people.
Women of all races finally achieved full citizenship when the 19th Amendment was adopted ‘in 1920. Native Americans, on the other hand, were granted U. S. citizenship when Congress passed a law (not an amendment) on June 2, 1924.
Social structures for people of color were dismantled by people of European Christian descent. Families of African slaves were broken up and offspring were sold to other owners. It was important for slave owners to engage in this practice so they could exert complete control over the slaves. Congress passed the General Allotment Act or Dawes Act in 1887 in an effort to assimilate Native Americans into "civilization," and to discourage communal activities, so that tribally owned lands could be broken up for the financial benefit of European descendants.
The government and private citizens, usually in conjunction with various Christian communities, attempted to assimilate children of various tribes into the American way of life. These children were placed in different schools around the country. One such school existed ten miles from my home town in Pennsylvania. The school was named Carlisle Indian School. This facility gained prominence through the exploits of perhaps the greatest athlete in the first half of the Twentieth Century: Jim Thorpe. The school was opened as a government boarding school in 1879. The purpose of the school was to instill a work ethic in the children torn from families of various tribes.
While I knew about the existence of Carlisle Indian School largely because of Jim Thorpe, I was unaware of one small, but important, part of its history. On the grounds of this now defunct school is an ominous and at the same time, sacred place. Over one hundred children of various tribes are buried in a cemetery located on the grounds. This cemetery was part of the U. S. Army War College which took over the facility of the former school. This cemetery was relocated to its present site from another part of the grounds in the 1930’s. Walking among the tombstones, as I have on several occasions, I can only begin to imagine what stories lay hidden in these graves. Most of these children died between the 1880’s and 1910. For the most part, these children were from western tribes with the single largest number of them being Apaches. These Apache children began arriving shortly after the capture of Geronimo. Information on the tombstones is scant, reflecting the children’s names, birth dates (although not always), dates of their deaths, and the names of their tribes.
In many of these schools, Native American children were subjected to different humiliations. In various tribes, braids for young males were an important part of their culture. They were forced to have their braids cut off when they arrived at the schools. Children were forbidden to speak in their tribal language at these schools and could only speak English. They experienced harsh discipline through whippings and starvation. Those children who eventually returned to their tribes sometimes became strangers in their own land. For some, they would never see their families and homes again.
Unfortunately, violations of human rights and dignities and various forms of abuse were not limited to Native Americans and descendants of African slaves. The United States government was willing to continue committing genocide. In 1898, the United States went to war with Spain, taking over the Philippines with the aid of nationalist guerrillas. The United States promised independence to these guerrillas. President William McKinley decided that we ought to keep the Philippines in order to "Christianize" the natives. When he was reminded that Filipinos were already Roman Catholic, he responded, "Exactly." Again, we betrayed a people of color and began a new conquest. Mark Twain saluted the resulting genocide of 200,000 men, women, and children by suggesting that "we replace the stars and stripes on our flag with skull and crossbones."
Chinese laborers who built western railroads in the 19th Century suffered cruelties that were inflicted by their employers. Latin Americans have been uprooted, persecuted, and colonized in our own land. As recently as World War II, Japanese Americans found themselves in internment (concentration) camps due to the national hysteria and paranoia questioning their loyalty to the United States. Did we find Americans of German descent being swept off the streets to internment camps for similar reasons?
The above-mentioned accounts of suffering endured by people of color in the Americas provide only a thumb nail sketch of the "non entertaining" information we will not ordinarily find in history books. History books would probably read like horror stories if Forrest Gump tactics were not employed to distort the past.
How are events occurring at the present moment going to be recorded? Until we, as well as historians, embrace the injustices being perpetrated in our own life time, our history books will be replete with similar fantasies for future generations to read. Injustices through racist institutions continue to plague people of color. While such injustices might be more "subtle" (or perhaps, not so subtle) in the United States, they are quite to the point in other places in the Americas. In Colombia, a country named in honor of Christopher Columbus, such injustices are part of the fabric of life today. Indigenous people of Latin America are being annihilated to this day for their land. People of color are being displaced, their rights being violated, and many are divested unjustly of their land, their homes, and traditions. Women, children, and the elderly are the ones mostly affected by this displacement. For each person murdered selectively,78 people become refugees. In a seventy two hour period in January of this year, 137 people were murdered by paramilitaries.
There are three main structural causes contributing to the forced displacement of the indigenous. These causes affect nearly two million people of color in Colombia. These are: 1) the economic mega-projects developed by multi-nationals or Colombian monopolies that get these people out of the way of carrying out these projects; 2) the counter-insurgency policy that operates through State terrorism which allows for paramilitary activities to continue unabated; 3) the concentration of the land in the hands of drug lords and/or large land owners. These structural causes have their roots in institutional racism. These practices do not differ from the past events mentioned previously but merely reflect a more modem "way" to eliminate people of color who "Inhibit progress." These acts speak loudly to how disconnected from one another and creation we are as followers of Christ. We have work to do!
The Roman Catholic Church, for its part, can lead the way towards debunking the fantasies American students have been exposed to for far too long. The Church has an opportunity to be a leader in bringing some healing about to the suffering people of color. With the advent of Jubilee 2000, the invocation of Leviticus 25 would be raised to its rightful place if the Church would revoke the Papal Bull of 1493. In chapter 25, verse 10 of Leviticus we are told we should "make the jubilee year sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants." Jubilee 2000 is a time for transformation by healing social divisions. It is an opportunity for the Church to manifest the intimate connection between justice and God’s Creation.
The divisions which need to be healed are rooted in institutional racism. According to Teaching Ethnic Studies, (National Council for the Social Studies, 1973) "cultural racism is "when whites use power to perpetuate their cultural heritage and impose it upon others, while at the same time destroying the culture of ethnic minorities." To paraphrase a comment from Institutional Racism in America by Knowles and Prewitt, "one of the clearest indicators of institutional racism is the exclusion of people of color of a society from positions of control and leadership." Institutions, including churches, have great power to reward and penalize. Power is the key element in perpetuating institutional racism. Institutional racism has been at the core of what has happened to people of color in the Americas (and elsewhere) over the last 500 years.
In addition to the untold violence which has been thrust upon indigenous peoples in this country, Native Americans continuously have to struggle with "white" attitudes about "getting over it" in such places as athletics. Not only are Native Americans told how and where to live, they are being told how to feel. They are "told" that it is an honor to be imitated in such practices as the "tomahawk chop," "war hoops," the use of tribal names and so on. Why do people who have been the focus of an American brand of "ethnic cleansing" continue to be subjected to discrimination? Isn’t five hundred years long enough to endure injustices and humiliation?
Some would argue that institutional racism does not exist in the United States. Father Bryan Massingale, an African American and moral theologian, asserts that we have racism in our consumer society because we have a collective unconscious belief that people with darker skin are less important than those with lighter skin. He believes that all issues in our society encounter racism and in order to put an end to every form of racism, we must not be merely satisfied with seeking justice. The struggle for justice is only partial and inadequate. It is doomed to failure without racial reconciliation. Father Massingale says that "the pursuit of jubilee justice in the United States involves racial reconciliation which is grounded in an honest engagement with our past to the present in order to create a new future." According to Massingale, "we are not called to infallibility but to greater honesty. If we truly want peace, we must not only work for justice, we must reject racism. If we really reject racism, we must seek reconciliation. And finally, if we seek reconciliation, we must speak the truth." These statements speak directly to the Forrest Gump assertions in our history books. They must be removed! This does not mean the dominant society has to feel that it has to "throw the baby out with the bath ." As Father Massingale puts it, "there are alternative just ways of being white."
I would like to underscore Fr. Massingale's statements by what Thomas Merton says about our human nature. Thomas Merton tells us that our many illusions which blind us can be briefly stated as follows: "that we can know ourselves and that we can know God." Our search to know ourselves often leads us to believe we need to be self-fulfilled, self-realized, and self-actualized. This search often leads us to be consumed with how we are doing in comparison to others. This illusion puts us on a very dangerous path to be competitive, to engage in rivalry, and to become violent. We can become capable of doing whatever it takes to know ourselves, even if it is at the expense of others. In our illusion to know God, we can become self-righteous and oppressive. We believe that we know what is good for others, especially those we deem lesser than ourselves. It ultimately leads us to believe that we are in control and can wield power over others.
So, how can we find hope in all of what has been said? While attending the National Catholic Gathering for Jubilee Justice at UCLA in June, 1999, my wife and I went to a session entitled "United States History and the Trail of Tears" presented by Ray Williams, the Director of Native American Affairs for the Archdiocese of Seattle. Mr. Williams is a Native American from the Pacific Northwest. At the end of this session, Stephen T. Newcomb, a Shawnee and Lanape Native American with the Indigenous Law Institute in Eugene, Oregon, requested assistance in asking Pope John Paul II to revoke the Papal Bull of 1493. He sent a similar request to the pope in 1993 with no apparent success.
After the breakout session a group of us drafted a letter petitioning Pope John Paul II to revoke Inter Cetera. Participating in this process was especially dear to me because of my own story. My mother was born and raised in Lake Andes, South Dakota on the Yankton Sioux Reservation. She was an enrolled member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe. My mother succumbed to tuberculosis, a disease which decimated many Native Americans, when she was 31 years old. She is buried in the sacred Black Hills (Paha Sapa). I still have relatives living on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, including a great aunt who is a tribal elder.
This petition provides an opportunity for the church to speak the truth about racism so that we might all be reconciled. Many have already signed it. You too can sign it and send it to the address indicated on the next page.
National Catholic Gathering for Jubilee Justice
A Call for the Revocation of the Inter Cetera Bull
His Holiness, Pope John Paul II,
It is with great joy and enthusiasm that we gather at this time in Los Angeles to celebrate our faith and open ourselves to the movement of God’s spirit, calling us to a deeper and more profound spirituality. We gratefully received your personal greetings and words carried here by His Eminence, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray.
We were particularly struck by his reminding us of your own words that "a commitment to Justice and peace is a necessary condition for the preparation and celebration of the Jubilee."
As an integral part of the Jubilee Justice Gathering, some of us have convened at the "United States History and the Trail of Tears" seminar about American Indians. In the course of our prayer and discussion, we have reflected on the sacred ways and traditions of our Indigenous brothers and sisters who suffered a holocaust over the past five centuries. We teamed the value that indigenous peoples place on the honoring of their ancestors and elders, preserving their oral and ceremonial traditions, and maintaining their lands, without which their cultural and spiritual ways of life may not survive.
In our reflection on the Church’s past evangelization efforts in the Americas, and on your call for "new evangelization" in the third millennium, we have paused to consider the need to close the second millennium in the spirit of prayer, atonement, healing, and reconciliation. Accordingly, with great enthusiasm we have discussed your recent Post-Synodal Exhortation Ecclesia in America. We were gratified by your remarks that the "territories and pacts of indigenous peoples must be respected."
However, Your Holiness, we must acknowledge that, in our history as the Catholic Church, we have not always lived up to this ideal. For example, the papal bull Inter Cetera of May 4, 1493, having been institutionalized in international law and U. S.
Indian law and policy as the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Dominion [I], continues to stand in stark contrast to your own words. This Inter Cetera bull states that "barbarous nations" (today’s Indigenous nations and peoples) be "subjugated" and over-thrown, as a means of converting them to the Catholic faith and Christian religion.
Your Holiness, we stand on the threshold of a new millennium preparing to celebrate a great year of Jubilee. We challenge ourselves to let the Land Lie Fallow and to Cancel All Debts. In this spirit, we join with some of our Indigenous members present in forwarding to you a letter written on May 4, 1993, calling upon Your Holiness to revoke the Inter Cetera bull as an active expression of solidarity with our Indigenous brothers and sisters. Clearly, to acknowledge the errors of the past is a painful and necessary step on the road to reconciliation and peace.
In conclusion, we are writing this letter because you have demonstrated to the world community that you are a person of great vision and compassion. We invite you to walk with us on the Sacred Path toward the healing of historical guilt, grief, and shame. With your ceremonial revocation we will honor the first Indigenous principle, "Respect the Earth as our Mother, and have a Sacred Regard for All Living Things."
The undersigned support this petition:
Name Address
Please sign the above petition and send it to:
Steven T. Newcomb, Director
Indigenous Law Institute
1430 Willamette P.M.B. 608
Eugene, OR 97401
541-343-3091
For more information, including a copy of the full text of Inter Cetera, you can consult this website:
http://bullsburning.itgo.com/papbull.htm
About the Author
Peter JanYuslum is married to Judy Hamilton Yuslum and they have two sons, Greg and Jeremy, both graduates of Jesuit High School in New Orleans. An active member of Pax Christi -New Orleans and the Secular Franciscan Order, Peter retired from the U. S. Probation Office in New Orleans in 1994. At this time, he is an administrator for Catholic Charities St. Charles Branch Clinical Counseling Office in Hahnville, LA, where he also does clinical counseling as a Board Certified Social Worker. Peter's mother, as is indicated in the article, was born and raised on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota where she was an enrolled member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe.
