The Canadian bishops did so in 2016 and the umbrella organization of U.S. Several Christian denominations in recent years have formally repudiated the doctrine. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cited the need for the Holy See to “address the Doctrine of Discovery,” as well as other issues including the return of Indigenous artifacts in the Vatican Museums, in his private talks with Francis on Wednesday, Trudeau’s office said.

“It’s been a long genocide over 500 years, and it still is valid law to this day,” she said.

She was in Quebec City with a delegation from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy to raise the issue with church leaders. “These colonizing nation states, in particular Canada and the United States, have utilized this doctrine as the basis for their title to land, which ultimately really means the dispossession of land of Indigenous peoples,” said Michelle Schenandoah, a member of the Oneida Nation Wolf Clan. It was cited as recently as a 2005 Supreme Court decision involving the Oneida Indian Nation. Supreme Court decision that has come to be understood as meaning that ownership and sovereignty over land passed to Europeans because they “discovered” it. Those decrees underpin the Doctrine of Discovery, a legal concept coined in a 1823 U.S. Francis has spent the week in Canada seeking to atone for the legacy and on Thursday added in another request for forgiveness from victims for the “evil” of clergy sexual abuse.īeyond the apology, Indigenous peoples have called on Francis to formally rescind the 15th century papal bulls, or decrees, that provided the Portuguese and Spanish kingdoms the religious backing to expand their territories in Africa and the Americas for the sake of spreading Christianity. The brief protest underscored one of the issues facing the Holy See following Francis’ historic apology for the Catholic Church’s involvement in Canada’s notorious residential schools, where generations of Indigenous peoples were forcibly removed from their families and cultures to assimilate them into Christian, Canadian society. The protesters were escorted away and the Mass proceeded without incident, though the women later marched the banner out of the basilica and draped it on the railing.

Right before Mass began, two Indigenous women unfurled a banner at the altar of the National Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré that read: “Rescind the Doctrine” in bright red and black letters. ST-ANNE-DE-BEAUPRÉ, Quebec (AP) - Pope Francis celebrated Mass on Thursday at Canada’s national shrine and came face-to-face with a long-standing demand from Indigenous peoples: to rescind the papal decrees underpinning the so-called “Doctrine of Discovery” and repudiate the theories that legitimized the colonial-era seizure of Native lands and form the basis of some property law today. Pope Francis celebrates Mass in Quebec and gives marching orders to the country's priests, deacons and religious sisters. People displays a banner during Pope Francis mass at the National Shrine of Saint Anne de Beaupré in Quebec City, Canada, Thursday, July 28, 2022.

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