Brazilian Indigenous Leaders Condemn Pope

Indian leaders in Brazil have reacted angrily to comments by Pope Benedict that they had been purified by the Roman Catholic church since Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492.

In a speech to bishops at the end of a visit to Brazil on Sunday, Benedict said indigenous people of the Americas had welcomed European priests after conquest. "It's arrogant and disrespectful to consider our cultural heritage secondary to theirs," said Jecinaldo Satere Mawe, chief co-ordinator of Coiab, an Amazon Indian group.

The pope had said the peoples of the Americas had a "silent longing" for Christianity and welcomed European priests' arrival. He said the church had not imposed itself on the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Read more: "Tribal Indians Condemn Pope"

Brazil's National Indian Foundation (Funa i),Brazilian historians and the Indians themselves challenged pope Benedict XVI's declarations on the Christianization of the Brazil's natives. The pope talked about the subject at the opening of the 5th General Conference of the Latin-American and Caribbean Episcopate (CELAM), in Brazil.

Read more: "Pope Called Insensitive and Arrogant for Remarks on Brazilian Indians"

See also: "Pope angers indigenous Brazilians over Christianity and colonisation remark"

And in the Reuters report in The Washington Post: "Brazil's Indians Offended by Pope Comments"

Pope Against Indigenous Religious Traditions

In an unsurprising declaration, following our previous post on the topic of the Roman Catholic Church and the cultural resrugence efforts of various indigenous peoples of the Americas, Pope Benedict XVI has pronounced himself against indigenous spiritual revivals. Speaking at the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, which runs through May 31, 2007, Catholic Online reported the following:

"A reference by the pope to pre-Columbus religions raised questions among some observers. While speaking positively of the synthesis between indigenous traditions and Christianity that led to the popular religious devotions found throughout Latin America, the pontiff warned against 'the utopia of going back to breathe life into the pre-Columbus religions, separating them from Christ and from the universal church'."

For more, see: Latin American, Caribbean bishops tackle pope’s ‘challenge to church’