Need apologetics help for this objection about Native Americans

[phil19034]

This is a variant of the problem of evil question, so if anyone has Faith troubles, please wait for someone to answer this question first. Thank you always.

Objection to be answered:
The Native Americans suffered from the expansion of the European colonization. Millions of innocent men, women, and children were killed in this, while their culture was destroyed.
Why would God allow this to happen? And why would He allow the Catholic Faith to be given a worse reputation, since the Natives view the Catholic Faith and Christianity in general, as a part of the cause that ruined their culture?

God bless you

First - I would say that the overwhelming majority of “Native American” are actually Christian and most are Catholic. This is because the overwhelming majority of “Native American” live in Latin America.

I put “Native American” in quotes because typically, “Native American” refers to the native peoples living in the United States only. Native peoples of Mexico, Central America & South America are typically called “Hispanics.”

Second - the Catholic Faith didn’t ruin their culture. Disease did. And new studies are showing that some of that disease may have actually been spread by the pigs and other animals that ran rampant and spread all over the Americas that were not native to the Western Hemisphere.

Now, what Protestant Christians did in North America and the Caribbean is NOT the same thing that the Spanish did. In South America, (esp Peru) there are still many areas where you have communities doing the same things.

Peru is 45% American Indian, 37% Mestizo (which means part Spanish-White, part American Indian), 15% white, 2% other.

So 82% of the population is descended from the Incas.

However, yes disease did reduce the population in HUGE numbers over 100 years. Perhaps reducing from 9 million to 600,000 over a 100 year period. HOWEVER, those numbers are guesses, as no one knows for sure how many people lived there.

Also, there is a TON of mis-information.

For example: Wikipedia says that the Spanish Inquisition was in Peru and that the natives were forced to convert. This is not really true. The Spanish Inquisition was not in South America, as it was only focused on the protecting the Conversos in Spain. Also the Catholic Church never approved or sanctioned forced conversions. It’s sinful for adults to receive Sacraments if they don’t mean it.

Is it possible, that some individuals might have pushed conversations hard, yes. However, mass conversions to Christianity really isn’t that hard to believe considering many of the brutal religions of native American people.

Finally, in many instances, you had many American indians convert to the Catholic faith after interacting with traveling, missionary Priests long before the settlers moved into those areas.

For example: one of the greatest pieces of American History that is left out of the text books is the fact that Pilgrims in Plymouth, MA didn’t have the first Thanksgiving in the US. Actually, the first took place in FL between Catholics and Natives. Then, one native convert to the Catholic faith migrated up to New England. When the Pilgrims landed, the Thanksgiving we all know and love was celebrated between the Protestant Pilgrims, and Native Americans who had a Catholic Native American among them!

And let me leave you with this… The Catholic Faith doesn’t assimilate people. That’s why we have many Rites and local traditions. Instead, the Catholic Faith takes the good of local Culture and brings it a Christian context.

catholic.com/magazine/articles/the-church-and-the-native-americans
catholicworldreport.com/Item/4394/the_catholic_origins_of_thanksgiving.aspx

God Bless

 

[mikekle]

Hi,

I don’t mean to say God forced people to do these things, but the objection is why he allows this to happen. Of course, I see these as involuntary doubts.

God bless

Look at all the thing God has allowed to take place in Israel and that is his chosen peoples land. However the only difference, God created a way for Israel to eventually ‘reclaim’ their home nation, and it happened. Maybe the same will be true in the future for the native americans…Seems unlikely, but who knows!

 

[ichabode]

I wonder how the same people view the brutality of Aztecs and Mayans. There are more, but those two civilizations are a great example of Indian life before European explorers came on the scene.

Some of the biggest loss of life for the Indians came not from bloodshed, but by sickness. I wonder how some of these historians can look in the mirror every day when they promote it was by evil intention that the Europeans passed on the flu. I guess no one is ever supposed to leave their house.

Many Indians welcomed the Europeans, and the culture, religion, and civilization that came with them. There are good and bad people in every race and culture. It is typical propaganda from the left to look back in history and paint it as a garden of paradise before the evil Christians came to town.

 

[ichabode]

Sublimus Dei [Dated: **May 29, 1537]

Pope Paul III (Topic: the enslavement and evangelization of Indians)

To all faithful Christians to whom this writing may come, health in Christ our Lord and the apostolic benediction.

The sublime God so loved the human race that He created man in such wise that he might participate, not only in the good that other creatures enjoy, but endowed him with capacity to attain to the inaccessible and invisible Supreme Good and behold it face to face; and since man, according to the testimony of the sacred scriptures, has been created to enjoy eternal life and happiness, which none may obtain save through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, it is necessary that he should possess the nature and faculties enabling him to receive that faith; and that whoever is thus endowed should be capable of receiving that same faith. Nor is it credible that any one should possess so little understanding as to desire the faith and yet be destitute of the most necessary faculty to enable him to receive it. Hence Christ, who is the Truth itself, that has never failed and can never fail, said to the preachers of the faith whom He chose for that office ‘Go ye and teach all nations.’ He said all, without exception, for all are capable of receiving the doctrines of the faith.

The enemy of the human race, who opposes all good deeds in order to bring men to destruction, beholding and envying this, invented a means never before heard of, by which he might hinder the preaching of God’s word of Salvation to the people: he inspired his satellites who, to please him, have not hesitated to publish abroad that the Indians of the West and the South, and other people of whom We have recent knowledge should be treated as dumb brutes created for our service, pretending that they are incapable of receiving the Catholic Faith.

We, who, though unworthy, exercise on earth the power of our Lord and seek with all our might to bring those sheep of His flock who are outside into the fold committed to our charge, consider, however, that the Indians are truly men and that they are not only capable of understanding the Catholic Faith but, according to our information, they desire exceedingly to receive it. Desiring to provide ample remedy for these evils, We define and declare by these Our letters, or by any translation thereof signed by any notary public and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical dignitary, to which the same credit shall be given as to the originals, that, notwithstanding whatever may have been or may be said to the contrary, the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect.

By virtue of Our apostolic authority We define and declare by these present letters, or by any translation thereof signed by any notary public and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical dignitary, which shall thus command the same obedience as the originals, that the said Indians and other peoples should be converted to the faith of Jesus Christ by preaching the word of God and by the example of good and holy living.

 

[PraiseChrist]

Thank you for the replies

 

[Lea101]

Christians have done terrible things.

It’s not right for people to act like the religion is demonic, and it’s not right for Christians to erase the oppression and act like nothing ‘that bad’ happened.

I guess this explanation from Fr Mike is relevant here

youtu.be/0NOTU1g0Z8w

 

[GEddie]

Look at all the thing God has allowed to take place in Israel and that is his chosen peoples land. However the only difference, God created a way for Israel to eventually ‘reclaim’ their home nation, and it happened. Maybe the same will be true in the future for the native americans…Seems unlikely, but who knows!

We should all hope not.

For NA to revert to that pattern of down-to-nature subsistence, it’s population would have to fall by 99%. And because the huddled masses of the world still have transportation and would covet the wide open spaces of NA, the same would have to happen all over the world.

There is a current vogue in the mass culture to blame Westernism and to praise everything that is indigenous, but I for one am passing on the Kool-Aid. Cultures are neither paramount nor eternal. Ask the Ammonites, Edomites, Babylonians, etc.

ICXC NIKA

 

[phil19034]

Christians have done terrible things.

It’s not right for people to act like the religion is demonic, and it’s not right for Christians to erase the oppression and act like nothing ‘that bad’ happened.

I guess this explanation from Fr Mike is relevant here

youtu.be/0NOTU1g0Z8w

did you read Pope Paul III’s letter (posted a few posts above yours)?

The Church did not condone any evils that individuals did in pursuit of secular goals and greed.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

We should all hope not.

For NA to revert to that pattern of down-to-nature subsistence, it’s population would have to fall by 99%. And because the huddled masses of the world still have transportation and would covet the wide open spaces of NA, the same would have to happen all over the world.

You are assuming that the return of the natives to their land would have to include a return of their way of life. It need not be. Europeans were once agrarian. They became industrialized. Why not the native Americans? Same economy as now, but different people in charge.

 

[GEddie]

You are assuming that the return of the natives to their land would have to include a return of their way of life. It need not be. Europeans were once agrarian. They became industrialized. Why not the native Americans? Same economy as now, but different people in charge.

I’m not sure why you would want the old cultures and religions back. Would it be a gain to the world for dead bodies to again cascade down the sides of the Mexican pyramids?

Some beliefs and cultural practices are better left in the past.

ICXC NIKA

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I’m not sure why you would want the old cultures and religions back. Would it be a gain to the world for dead bodies to again cascade down the sides of the Mexican pyramids?

Some beliefs and cultural practices are better left in the past.

ICXC NIKA

You have completely misinterpreted what I wrote. I did not call for the return of old cultures or religions. I was saying essentially the opposite. I was saying that you don’t have call for the return of old ways of life if you call for the return of land to the peoples who once inhabited that land. Mikekle raised the remote possibility that some day God might return land to native Americans. Mikekle did not advocate such a return - only raised the possibility. Your response was to advocate against such a return on the grounds that it would mean the return of old ways of life. There may be a good argument against such a return of the land to those people, but your argument wasn’t it, because the return to old ways of life is an irrelevant red herring, because the decedents of those native Americans are just as capable of modern ways of life as the current owners of that land.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Who has to leave, and who gets to stay?

Where I live, virtually everybody has some Indian ancestry, though you couldn’t tell it by looking at them. I have little doubt that if the DNA of everybody in the U.S. was tested, there would be a lot more “Indians” (in part) than there were before Columbus. That’s what happens when majorities intermarry with minorities. Recognizable “ethnic” features tend to disappear. Look at the Saami in northern Sweden, Norway and Finland. Their remote ancestors were almost certainly related to Eskimos and Aleuts, but you couldn’t tell it by looking at them. So, if today there is a decree that only people related to Eskimos and Aleuts could live in those areas, would the Saami get to stay or not?

And Magyarul is a Turkic language, though Hungarians are probably more German than anything else. Same with Finnish. So, if only the “Turkic” people get to stay in Hungary and Finland, who are they? Who has to leave?

 

[hu324b]

We must recognize what they did wrong at the very least and say so. The history is there the US Government try genocide on the native Americans and thankfully failed.

If its not acknowledged then nothing has been learned

The Black hills are a good example of what the US Government did to the Sioux that goes on even to today - given to the Sioux - then taken back because gold was found - today they still will not accept the money for this land claim.

 

[bitterhope]

Who has to leave, and who gets to stay?

Where I live, virtually everybody has some Indian ancestry, though you couldn’t tell it by looking at them. I have little doubt that if the DNA of everybody in the U.S. was tested, there would be a lot more “Indians” (in part) than there were before Columbus. That’s what happens when majorities intermarry with minorities. Recognizable “ethnic” features tend to disappear. Look at the Saami in northern Sweden, Norway and Finland. Their remote ancestors were almost certainly related to Eskimos and Aleuts, but you couldn’t tell it by looking at them. So, if today there is a decree that only people related to Eskimos and Aleuts could live in those areas, would the Saami get to stay or not?

And Magyarul is a Turkic language, though Hungarians are probably more German than anything else. Same with Finnish. So, if only the “Turkic” people get to stay in Hungary and Finland, who are they? Who has to leave?

You make some really good points. I don’t like the term Native American to describe myself. To me, anybody born in America is a Native American. I am Indian or indigenous, and many people in the US have some Indian blood in them. I will say that some (very few but extremely vocal) members of my extended family have it in their minds that 100% is all that should qualify, and tribal lands should be restored. I don’t even count as Indian because my mom is half Irish. But at what date in history do we restore them to? From what I understand, just in the continental US, the tribal lands changed a lot over time. In Mexico they REALLY changed, in South America they changed as much as Mexico and somewhat continue to do so, and I’m pretty sure it’s the same with Canada. Much of the US was uninhabited and only used for hunting and migration. Most Americans don’t fit into any specific group. Where would people go if it was mandated people needed to vacate the US? Most Indians are mixed. My family is Lakota on dad’s side and Irish, Cherokee, and possibly Iroquois or another northeastern woodland tribe on mom’s side. My kids are also mixed with Huasteco (a Mayan tribe) from my husband. Which tribal land do we go back to? How many actually want to honestly go back to living like it was pre Columbus times? I’m very glad I got to be born in a time where my people knew Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I’m glad my dad was born during a time he was able to leave the reservation, join the Army, and meet my mom.

We really need to get to a place where we are able to move on. Accepting that life has changed now, and in many ways it’s changed for the better. Especially in the US where we have the opportunity to live in ways we see as a best fit for us and our families. We can follow whatever traditions we choose and abandon the ones we find are outdated. It’s a very good time to let go of hurts and embrace forgiveness.