A group of old ladies planted a flag in front of the door to St. Peter’s Basilica, formed a circle, burned incense, waved some feathers around, channeled thoughts from others into prayers (not sure how this worked), and had the great-great-great-great granddaughter of Chief Dull Knife of the Lakota Nation perform traditional dances.
AND THEY GOT KICKED OUT! Can you believe it? That really shows how oppressive the Catholic Church really is, doesn’t it?
Mona Polacca is a Hopi/Havasupai /Tewa elder working on her Ph.D at at Arizona State University. (How did I know she was working on her PH.D) She is a member of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers and wrote of her recent trip to the Vatican on the Newsweek/Washington Post On Faith blog today.
Check out the self importance in this post:
Over 500 years ago, Indigenous peoples of the western hemisphere first experienced the arrival of the Europeans (Spaniards and Italians under Spanish flag). When these strange looking men stepped off their ship and set foot on Arawak Territory (initially an island later named Hispanola), the first thing they did was plant the flag of Spain and declare the land their own. This action was under the authorization of certain papal bulls issued by the Pope. The pope authorized the conversion of the “discovered” heathens to Christianity or to “overthrow” and “subjugate” them.
On July 9, 2008, the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers (the “Council”) arrived in Rome, Italy to address the Vatican papal bull. We were turned away.
She’s essentially comparing her arrival at the Vatican to the arrival of Europeans. Her doctorate will not be in humility, I can guarantee that.
She says, however, she was befuddled by the ungracious response because she didn’t come to plant a “conquering” flag, but to “lay a flag of peace and conciliation on the ground of the Vatican Square in front of the door to St. Peter’s Basilica.”
Look, these folks are mad about the way Europe treated many indigenous peoples and the way the Church ignored and maybe even instigated cruelties. There have been many apologies from both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI concerning this already. In fact, just last year Pope Benedict said, “It is not possible, indeed, to forget the sufferings…inflicted by colonizers on the indigenous populations, whose fundamental human rights were often trampled on.”
I am sorry for the way many of these people were treated. There is much to regret. But this just has the feel of grandstanding, doesn’t it? So put the incense away please, gather up the feathers, and channel yourself away from the door to the Basilica so people can pray in peace. Please.
September 11, 2008 at 6:40 pm
I am still waiting for a formal apology from representatives of the late Roman Empire for capturing and enslaving and often murdering my Slavic ancestors. I assume that there must be some guilty ones still hovering about Italy.
I wonder if you might know Ph.d-to-be Mona Polacca’s email address? I was thinking of getting up a group of other Slavic geezers to protest this lack of admission of guilt somewhere or other in Rome–location yet to be determined.
Oh well, back to sauteeing the pierogis.
September 11, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Actually, as history shows, the Protestant Europeans dismissed them as near animals. While the theologians at the time weren’t sure, they at least left them alone long enough to discuss whether they were rational creatures or not. Not pretty either way you look at it, but at least we discussed it. Most of the non-Catholics went in to exterminate what they considered animals from the land.
September 11, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Anonymous is right. The French and the Spaniards at least regarded the natives as human enough to be wed to. Mexico had Native/Spanish intermarried nobles well into the 17th century.
Regarding the conquest and colonization of America, guess dead men tell no tales, huh?
September 11, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Ah, now here IS something that the U.S. Bishops can sink their teeth in at their November meeting.
September 11, 2008 at 11:14 pm
I understood that in some places, the missionaries worked hard to baptize the natives because then they couldn’t be made slaves. Not all bad…
September 12, 2008 at 12:32 am
Since am part Indian / First Nations, I hereby apologize to myself. However, as for the rest of you folks, I want some serious reparations.
— Mack
September 12, 2008 at 1:58 am
Why don't they focus their energy on the Union Army? Sheridan & Sherman, after raping the South, turned their evil on the Indians; so, anyone who's ancestor was in the Union army needs to send $5 to the WackyGrannies.
September 12, 2008 at 3:27 am
I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of my Teutonic ancestors, to ask forgiveness of descendants of the Roman Empire from way-back-long-time-ago, for the bad things they did. I am sorry for the misuderstanding.
Now will they please leave my front yard and take their busts of Caesar and discarded togas with them? I’d appreciate it very much, as I don’t want to have to get medieval on them all over again.
September 12, 2008 at 8:20 am
Oh crap. This is nonsense. Thes silly old hags should go and worship their pagan deities somewhere where it will really make a difference. Mecca, in the Apartheid Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where just to disbelie in “Allah” is a capital offence.
Go on, silly old bags, you can get your jollies by poking fun at Crhristains, why not mock the paedophile “prophet” to it in Medinah or Tehran…
Or even in West Jerusalem without the dreaded Jews to protect you…..
September 12, 2008 at 1:04 pm
It seems to me that instead of this nonsense, it would be a better use of their time to protest some of these tribes that have become rich (oil, casinos) while other tribes languish in poverty (Wounded Knee). These types are all for wealth redistribution aren’t they?
September 12, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Mr. Hetmen, as a fellow Slav, I’d like to join in your quest for reparations.
On a more serious note, I wonder if these women contacted the Vatican at all prior to this. You can’t just show up and expect to do what may well seem like a pagan ceremony on the Vatican’s front lawn and just expect it will work out. I imagine if they had contacted them before, this wouldn’t have happened the same way. I mean, if I show up at someone’s house without notice, I can’t really expect them to be ready for me.
The Church totally did allow some bad stuff, but you can’t just show up, not get the reception you hoped for, and then complain because you didn’t bother to arrange it beforehand. Unless this is all part of her thesis, in which case I suppose it will go much better with Church Unrepentant.
~Nzie
September 12, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Anon@9/11 8:58 p.m.
Sherman (a Catholic) raped the South, eh?
From his letter to the Mayor and Councilmen of Atlanta:
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/sherman/sherman-to-burn-atlanta.html
“… In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands and thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance. …”
September 13, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Hmm…I believe that my Grandmother, whom I think was French-Canadian, was thus also a Native American (as in North America!). So, I think I must have some of HER Native blood in my veins…and as I recall, she was quite a very devout Catholic.
Maybe I can apologize to myself then, too? I don’t know the history of Canada’s colonization, though.
But I AM for certain Irish, and I would also like an apology from all the Protestants who disparaged and oppressed my ancestors. And those who were locked into the lower levels of the Titanic of the steerage class. (yes, about this I’m joking, for the literalists out there who will poitn out historical accuracy).
Oh, and as I have a bit of French blood, I DEMAND an apology from those people who oppressed my Catholic ancestors durng the French Revolution and beheaded them for refusing to conform to their definition of “freedom”.
As a person of Swedish ancestry…I apologize to those whom my Viking ancestors must have slaughtered or robbed or..whatever they did to you.
And dang it…I think that as my Dad’s family was Lutheran, I apologize to the world for the heresy spread by my ancestors that kept you all away from Christ…they really didn’t know any better. (They hated my Irish-Catholic Mother. * sigh * )
We are all so conflicted!
September 15, 2008 at 12:54 am
Perhaps the IGs should be thankful that the Europeans who arrived were able actually to do something with the wheel, so that the IGs eventually could fly to Vatican City to harange the pope. After all, what is clear from history is that while Westerners may not come up with all the great ideas, we are the ones who figure out what to do with them.
Or, they’re welcome to go back to eating meat burned over a campfire, chewing hides and murdering/scalping, possibly cannibalizing each other. That’s over Anasazi way, I believe…ugly things happened to them, and it wasn’t the Europeans that did it.
September 15, 2008 at 4:09 am
Civil War?
Down here we call it the War of Northern aggression. Some parts in the South they call it the War Amongst the States. Others call it the Second Revolutionary War (we lost).
On behalf of my Norman ancestors who rode a boat with William the Conqueror over to a small backwater nation called England. We apologize for systematically organizing and streamlining your bureaucracy (The Book of Doom), of elevating your barbaric language (poultry instead of chicken, beef instad of cow… can I have a cow-burger please-doesn’t sound right doesn’t it).
And finally in teaching you the finer arts (the bayeaux tapestry).
If it wasn’t for us French speaking Vikings you all would be stuck in a bad episode of Monty Python meets Benny Hill.
You’re welcome.
Tito son of Edward the Chicken eater.
September 17, 2008 at 4:46 am
The 1/4 of me that is Polish needs apologies from: Russians (multiple), Germans(multiple),Hungarians(multiple),descendants of Tartars (extreme), Ukranians (just because they must have crossed the border a few times)
The 1/4 of me that is Italian needs apologies from the descendants of Barbarians, the English (they invaded southern Italy and Sicily), the French.
The 1/16 of me that is French needs lots of apologies from the English (into perpetuity in fact), the Germans (multiple), the Italians (Roman descendants), Celts
The 1/8 of me that is Scottish also needs England to send apologies from the surface of the netherworld.
The 1/4 of me that is Irish needs the English to send their apologies from the depths of the netherworld.
The 1/8 of me that is English doesn’t need apologies. I am in the Netherworld and the Vikings are here too!