Catholics in the New World

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Catholics in the New World
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The New World
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Explorers

• Vasco Nunez de Balboa (1475-1519) First
  European to see the eastern part of the Pacific
  Ocean (in 1513), crossing the Isthmus of Panama.
• John Cabot Born in Genoa in 1450. Sailed from
  England in 1497 and was convinced he'd found an
  island off the coast of Asia and he named the
  island "new found land.
• Pedro Álvares Cabral Portuguese navigator
  credited as the discoverer of Brazil (April 22,
  1500).
• Jacques Cartier born in 1491 in France. Sailed
  up the St. Lawrence hoping to land in China.

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Explorers

• Christopher Columbus - Born in Genoa, Italy, in
  1451 but settled in Portugal. Landed in
  Hispaniola.
• Hernan Cortes 1547-1585 Spain
• Juan Ponce de Leon (1460?-1521) Spanish
  explorer. The first European to set foot in
  Florida.
• Henry Hudson Englishman in Dutch service.
  Summer of 1609 sails for a northern passage.
• Giovanni da Verrazzano explored the east coast of
  what is now the United States in 1525. He is best
  known for being the discoverer of New York Harbor

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Columbus

• As a young man, he settled in Portugal. After his
  wife's death in 1485, moved to Spain.
• Like all learned men of his time, Columbus knew
  the world was round. Therefore a ship could
  eventually reach the Far East from the opposite
  direction. Thus, he sought to establish trade
  routes to Asia.
• Ferdinand and Isabella (Spain) sponsored Columbus
  and in return Columbus promised to bring back
  gold, spices, and silks from the Far East, and
  to spread Christianity.

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Columbuss contract

• Admiral of the Ocean Sea
• Governor General of all discovered lands
• 10 of all wealth
• Titles and wealth to be hereditary

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Columbuss Intentions

• "Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians, and
  princes who love and promote the holy Christian
  faith, and are enemies of the doctrine of
  Mahomet, and of all idolatry and heresy,
  determined to send me, Christopher Columbus, to
  the above-mentioned countries of India, to see
  the said princes, people, and territories, and to
  learn their disposition and the proper method of
  converting them to our holy faith and
  furthermore directed that I should not proceed by
  land to the East, as is customary, but by a
  Westerly route, in which direction we have
  hitherto no certain evidence that any one has
  gone..."

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Missionary?

• Friday, Oct. 12th...
• "As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and
  perceived that they could be much more easily
  converted to our holy faith by gentle means than
  by force, I presented them with some red caps,
  and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and
  many other trifles of small value, wherewith they
  were much delighted and became wonderfully
  attached to us... I am of opinion that they would
  very readily become Christians, as they appear to
  have no religion."

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Missionary?

• Monday, Nov. 12th...
• "Your Highnesses should therefore adopt the
  resolution of converting them to Christianity, in
  which enterprise I am of opinion that a very
  short space of time would suffice to gain to our
  holy faith multitudes of people..."

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Canada

• The Portuguese and Spanish
• Ruled the seas and were making the
  discoveries in the far corners of the globe.
• The French in Canada
• 1534 traveler Jacques Cartier claimed Canada.
• A great cross was erected the party knelt
  down, and as Cartier recorded, we folded our
  hands and venerated the Cross in the presence of
  a large number of savages, in order to show them
  by the lifting up of our hands to heaven that
  our salvation depended on the Cross. (Neill 170)

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Canada
Jacques Cartier
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Conditions

• Harsh climate, food shortage, disease
• Warring tribes
• Torture and death by the hands of the native
  groups
• Jesuits along with other orders
• A Iroquois-Huron war resulted in the deaths of
  some of the missionaries and the Catholic mission
  to Canada at that time came to a stop.
• The mission resumed in 1625 after the
  establishment of French settlements in Quebec

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The French Jesuit Martyrs among the Huron and
Iroquois

• Antony Daniel 1648
• Charles Garnier 1649
• Noel Chabanel 1649
• Isaac Jogues 1646
• John de Brebeuf 1649

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Other Voices

• Antonio de Montesinos
• Santo Domingo, Porto Rico
• I have come up on this pulpit, I who am a voice
  of Christ crying in the wilderness of this
  island. This voice says that you are in mortal
  sin...for the cruelty and tyranny you use in
  dealing with these innocent people. Tell me, by
  what right or justice do you keep these Indians
  in such cruel and horrible servitude?

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BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS

• 1484-1566
• Arrived in the New World in 1502
• Gentlemen cleric
• Called for the importation of African slaves for
  heavy work.
• 1512 Participated in conquest of Cuba. Received
  sizable encomienda.
• 1514 Conversion
• Everything done to the Indians thus far was
  wrong and tyrannical.
• 50 years labored for the cause of the Indians

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Las Casas vs. Sepulveda

• Sepulveda Those whose condition is such that
  their function is the use of their bodies and
  nothing better can be expected of them, those, I
  say, are slaves by nature. It is better for them
  to be ruled thus.
• Natives are as children are to adults, as
  women are to men...as cruel people are from mild
  people. They require, by their own nature and
  in their own interests, to be placed under the
  authority of civilized and virtuous princes...so
  that they may learn, from the might, wisdom, and
  law of their conquerors, better morals, worthier
  customs and a more civilized way of life.

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Las Casas vs. Sepulveda

• Las Casas Thus mankind is one, and all men are
  alike in that which concerns their creation and
  all natural things, and no one is born
  enlightened. From this it follows that all of us
  must be guided and aided at first by those who
  were born before us.
• And the savage peoples of the earth may be
  compared to uncultivated soil that readily brings
  forth weeds and useless thorns, but has within
  itself such natural virtue that by labor and
  cultivation it may be made to yield sound and
  beneficial fruits.

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LAS CASAS

• His critics
• Sentimental exaggeration (Neill 146)
• Did not respect the differences between the
  Indian populations
• Convinced Charles I to signs the "New Laws" which
  prohibited Indian slavery.
• Through his influence encomienda came to an end
  20 Nov 1542.
• Attempted to build a colony of farm communities
  in present-day Venezuela inhabited by both
  Spanish and free Indians. Failed due to
  opposition by the colonists.
• In 1537 he receives support from the Pope in the
  form of a bull which declared the American
  Indians as rational beings with souls and that
  their lives and property should be protected.

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The Propaganda

• The Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of
  the Faith
• 1622 Pope Gregory XV (Neill 152)
• Free RC from Portugal and Spain
• Create bishoprics and link them tightly to the
  church
• Develop indigenous clergy rapidly
• Separate mission from colonial associations
• Retain local culture as much as possible. (Neill
  153)

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Notes

• Catholic Mission 16th to 18th Centuries
• Experimentation in method
• Patriarchal very few indigenous clergy
• Limited fruit by the end of the period
• International change After a peak in the first
  half of the 17th c, the favor of rulers ceased,
  Spain and Portugal weakened as sea powers.
• Very high mortality disease, persecution
• Lack of respect of local culture Latin liturgy,
  celibacy of clergy, importation of Western
  culture as a mission strategy, little language
  fluency or study of culture

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Notes

• Rare vernacular scripture After the
  establishment of Christianity in the Philippines,
  it took 3 centuries to get the scriptures into
  any local language.
• Decline
• Internal conflict in the church - Jansenism
• Conflict among missionaries.
• Hostility of the other orders to the Jesuits and
  the dissolution of the Jesuit Order in 1773.
• With this act the Pope had condemned Roman
  Catholic missions to temporary eclipse. (Neill
  175)

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Notes

• The principal obstacle to the evangelization of
  the western peoples was the cruelty with which
  they were treated by the Spanish colonists.
  (Neill 145)
• Encomienda