Saturday, July 12, 2025

The Editor, Amandala,

Please help me to revoke the Vatican’s 4 racist papal bulls that created and maintained 500 years of systemic racism.

The “Doctrine of Discovery” is a legal concept rooted in 15th-century papal bulls, primarily Dum Diversas (1452), Romanus Pontifex (1455), and Inter Caetera (1493). These bulls granted European powers, like Spain and Portugal, the right to claim lands and subjugate non-Christian populations (mainly Africans and Native Americans).

In March 2023, the Vatican formally rejected the Doctrine of Discovery, stating it did not reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples (that is Africans and Native Americans) and was not a teaching of the Catholic Church.

The 4 papal bulls led to slavery and massacres, oppression and inequality of Africans and Native Americans, and are still referenced by, and influence laws around the world, per the US Library of Congress.

These papal bulls are rarely known or talked about by Black people, and should be talked about in every Black household, every Black church and every Black society.

The Vatican has apologized for the Doctrine of Discovery, but has not revoked / repealed any of these racist papal bulls that still influence laws globally, including in the USA.

Talk is cheap.

Apology is cheap.

The Vatican will claim these papal bulls are not active; but if there is no papal bull to revoke/repeal these papal bulls, then they are still active.

Please put immediate and constant pressure on the Vatican to issue a papal bull revoking/repealing these 4 papal bulls.

Federal and local laws globally will take some time to change, but I think we can end or at least weaken systemic racism within a generation or two.

Sincerely,

H. Ricketts

(AMANDALA Ed. Note: Following are a few excerpts from the March 30, 2023, article, “Vatican formally rejects ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ after Indigenous calls,” at www.pbs.org:

In the statement, the Vatican said: “The Catholic Church therefore repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political ‘doctrine of discovery.’”… The Vatican offered no evidence that the three papal bulls (Dum Diversas in 1452, Romanus Pontifex in 1455 and Inter Caetera in 1493) had themselves been formally abrogated, rescinded or rejected, as Vatican officials have often said. But it cited a subsequent bull, Sublimis Deus in 1537, that reaffirmed that Indigenous peoples shouldn’t be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, and were not to be enslaved.… Phil Fontaine, a former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations in Canada who was also part of the First Nations delegation that met with Francis at the Vatican, said the statement was “wonderful,” resolved an outstanding issue and now puts the matter to civil authorities to revise property laws that cite the doctrine.… “The church has done one thing, as it said it would do, for the Holy Father. Now the ball is in the court of governments, the United States and in Canada, but particularly in the United States where the doctrine is embedded in the law,” he told The Associated Press.)