Papal visit stirs Conquest controversy

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Pope Benedict XVI is back in Vatican City, but his words during his just-completed trip to Brazil continue to stir controversy—and not just his strictures against pre-marital sex, abortion and Liberation Theology.

Indigenous leaders have expressed outrage about the pope’s benign take on the ``encounter’’ between ``faith and the indigenous peoples.’’ From Brazil to Guatemala, spokesmen have challenged what they view as a neo-revisionist interpretation of the Conquest narrative, which was for centuries largely a story of Europeans bringing ``civilization’’ to the New World.

In modern times, historians have also stressed some of the Conquest’s catastrophic fallout—destructive of native cultures and mass death due to disease, forced labor and murder.

The pope’s words: ``What did the acceptance of the Christian faith mean for the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean? For them, it meant knowing and welcoming Christ, the unknown God whom their ancestors were seeking, without realizing it, in their rich religious traditions... In effect, the proclamation of Jesus and of His Gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-Columbus cultures, nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture.’’

Posted by Patrick J. McDonnell and Andrés D’Alessandro in Buenos Aires