On Thursday, the Vatican responded to Indigenous demands and formally repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery,” that was used by Europeans to justify their conquests of Native lands in Africa and the Americas, stating that it is "not part of the teaching of the Catholic Church".
The Holy See admitted that papal documents from the 15th century were used by European powers to legitimize their actions in conquered territories, which included slavery, according to the statement from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education and the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
The specific documents, listed in the statement, are the papal bulls Dum Diversas (Until Different) from 1452, Romanus Pontifex (The Roman Pontiff) from 1455, and Inter Caetera (Among Other Things) from 1493.
"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," the Dicasteries noted.
The Vatican stressed that the bulls "were manipulated for political purposes by competing colonial powers in order to justify immoral acts against indigenous peoples that were carried out, at times, without opposition from ecclesiastical authorities".
In reality, when African lands became European colonies, missionaries started spreading Christianity as traditional African beliefs were considered primitive. Later on, with industrialization and the establishment of capitalism on the continent, indigenous people had to become Christians in order to have access to European missionary education and be able to get a decent job in the future.
Colonialists also argued that the absence of Christian belief and behavior made African people inferior and that they lacked the capacity to be "civilized".