Brazil's Indians offended by Pope comments !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: Reuters
May 14, 2007 Author: Raymond Colitt


BRASILIA, May 14 (Reuters) - Outraged Indian leaders in Brazil said on Monday they were offended by Pope Benedict's "arrogant and disrespectful" comments that the Roman Catholic Church had purified them and a revival of their religions would be a backward step.

In a speech to Latin American and Caribbean bishops at the end of a visit to Brazil, the Pope said the Church had not imposed itself on the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

They had welcomed the arrival of European priests at the time of the conquest as they were "silently longing" for Christianity, he said.

Millions of tribal Indians are believed to have died as a result of European colonization backed by the Church since Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492, through slaughter, disease or enslavement.

Many Indians today struggle for survival, stripped of their traditional ways of life and excluded from society.

"It's arrogant and disrespectful to consider our cultural heritage secondary to theirs," said Jecinaldo Satere Mawe, chief coordinator of the Amazon Indian group Coiab.

Several Indian groups sent a letter to the Pope last week asking for his support in defending their ancestral lands and culture. They said the Indians had suffered a "process of genocide" since the first European colonizers had arrived.

Priests blessed conquistadors as they waged war on the indigenous peoples, although some later defended them and many today are the most vociferous allies of Indians.

"The state used the Church to do the dirty work in colonizing the Indians but they already asked forgiveness for that ... so is the Pope taking back the Church's word?" said Dionito Jose de Souza a leader of the Makuxi tribe in northern Roraima state.

Pope John Paul spoke in 1992 of mistakes in the evangelization of native peoples of the Americas.

Pope Benedict not only upset many Indians but also Catholic priests who have joined their struggle, said Sandro Tuxa, who heads the movement of northeastern tribes.

"We repudiate the Pope's comments," Tuxa said. "To say the cultural decimation of our people represents a purification is offensive, and frankly, frightening.

"I think (the Pope) has been poorly advised."

Even the Catholic Church's own Indian advocacy group in Brazil, known as Cimi, distanced itself from the Pope.

"The Pope doesn't understand the reality of the Indians here, his statement was wrong and indefensible," Cimi advisor Father Paulo Suess told Reuters. "I too was upset."

[FAH1223]

They killed half a billion people coming to the New World smh

[Grant]

I have nothing good to say about this Pope, but let's please not exaggerate the number of deaths, or misstate their causes. The truth is bad enough. The burning of the Maya Codices and the Inca quipus in the name of the Inquisition lost large segments of the historical record of human development, possibly equivalent to the burning of the library at Alexandria. That was some purification alright.

I am glad to see some native groups are still sufficiently cohesive and resurgent to have spokesmen. I couldn't agree more with their argument and feeling that offense needs to be taken.

But:

http://www.bookrags.com/Population_hist ... us_peoples

"Population overview

Estimates of how many people were living in the Americas when Columbus arrived have varied tremendously; in the 20th century scholarly estimates ranged from a low of 8.4 million to a high of 112.5 million persons. Given the fragmentary nature of the evidence, precise pre-Columbian population figures are impossible to obtain; estimates are often produced by extrapolation from comparatively small bits of data. In 1976, geographer William Denevan used these various estimates to derive a "consensus count" of about 54 million people, although some recent estimates are lower than that.[1] Anthropologists agree that the bulk of indigenous American ancestry can be traced to ice age migrations from Asia over the Bering land bridge, though some believe previous sea faring peoples contributed small population stocks. "

The VAST majority of deaths were from diseases imported unintentionally by immigrants from Europe, Asia and Africa to which native Americans had no immunities. Read the rest of a long article.

[Daanyeer]

Grant,


In ESSENCE, ur MESSAGE is 'BAAAAANNNNNNAAALLLLEEELLUUUJJAA"

[xamari_gash]