PRAYER - STUDY - ACTION
DECOLONIZE THE SEASON
Thanksgiving, Nov. 25 through the First Week of Advent, Nov. 28-Dec. 4
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
Greetings of peace!

This week is a precious time — we’re preparing for the upcoming season of Advent, visiting with those we hold close, and giving thanks for the goodness that surrounds us.

Your own Thanksgiving traditions might be marked by gathering with family and friends, expressing gratitude for those around you, or sharing time with your loved ones. While all of these pleasantries are great — and should probably be exercised more frequently — they leave out the honest truth about the history of Thanksgiving.

Like many of us, the formal education I received about this holiday was plagued with a narrative of patriotism and camaraderie — carefully omitting any mention of genocide and colonization. When we tell the myth of Thanksgiving, we make invisible a whole population, we misrepresent the atrocities done by colonizers, and we dismiss the rich Indigenous cultures that were here long before Europeans arrived — and that remain here today.

Because of our tradition’s complicity in colonial violence, Catholics, in particular, have a responsibility to educate ourselves, claim accountability, and take action to begin repairing the ongoing harm of colonization.

Earlier this month, members of the Pax Christi USA staff attended the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice and presented on the need to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, established via papal teaching to provide spiritual, political, and legal justification for colonization and seizure of land not inhabited by Christians. The PSA below is both inspired by that presentation and encouraged by our Advent campaign, an invitation to commit to the process of learning and unlearning the ways that both our internal and external spaces have been colonized. 

Throughout Advent, Pax Christi USA will be sharing ways to pray, study, and act around the theme of decolonization. This PSA for Thanksgiving through the first week of Advent (ending Saturday, Dec. 4), as well as other resources for throughout Advent & Christmas, can be found on our website at this page. We'll continue to add resources throughout the season.

No matter your entry point into these conversations, I hope you are able to sit with the discomfort, commit to education, and work for justice.
In peace,

Lauren Bailey
National Field Organizer, Pax Christi USA
PRAYER
Eagle Poem
by Joy Harjo
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can't see, can't hear,
Can't know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren't always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
>> Join us each Monday evening in Advent over Zoom from 8:30-9pm for an Advent evening prayer service with Pax Christi USA members from around the nation. Click here to register.

>> Join us TONIGHT for this month's PAX Mass at 8pm ET lifting up Palestinian liberation. Click here for more information.
STUDY
Bishop denounces the 'Doctrine of Discovery',
used to justify abuse of Indigenous peoples,
& suggests Pope Francis do the same
by Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service
The Catholic bishop of Syracuse, New York, is speaking out against the Doctrine of Discovery and revealing plans to ask Pope Francis to repudiate theological teachings used for centuries to justify the subjugation of Indigenous peoples.

In an interview with Religion News Service on Wednesday (June 30), Bishop Douglas J. Lucia explained he is exploring a possible meeting with the Holy See to discuss a series of 15th-century papal bulls, or decrees, used by European Christians to rationalize colonizing Indigenous people and their land.

“Since they were papal bulls in the beginning,” Lucia said, there should be “a public acknowledgment from the Holy Father of the harm these bulls have done to the Indigenous population” as well as some kind of statement “to repudiate” the Doctrine of Discovery.

The Doctrine of Discovery draws from a series of papal documents that date back to Pope Nicholas V, whose 1452 “Dum Diversas” initiated a lineage of bulls Europeans used to justify various aspects of colonization. It found its way into future documents as well: Indigenous peoples were read the “Requerimiento” by Spanish conquistadors, which proclaimed their land belonged to Spain and demanded they abide by the authority of the monarchy and the pope.

More to the point, activists and scholars argue, the bulls allowed Europeans to insist Christian rulers can, among other things, seize the land and possessions of non-Christians.

“This particular doctrine has been used to justify both political and personal violence against Indigenous nations, Indigenous peoples and their culture — their religious and their territorial identities,” Lucia said…
>> Review the Rethinking Thanksgiving Toolkit that was created by the Indigenous Solidarity Network of Showing Up for Racial Justice. Included in the toolkit are materials for deconstructing common narratives, discovering our personal and collective histories, how to support the work for reparations, and questions to reflect on. Click here to find the toolkit.

>> Pax Christi Michigan recently featured this article in their November PSA, "6 Native leaders on what it would look like if the U.S. kept its promises".
ACTION
Take actions to address the Doctrine of Discovery
During Pax Christi USA's breakout session at the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice (photo right of our staff at IFTJ), participants were invited to think of ways they could take action in response to the Doctrine of Discovery. Some of the suggested actions, which I encourage you to take as you are able, are:

Micro-level (interpersonal or one-on-one):
> Read the Doctrine of Discovery and reflect on how it has impacted your experiences and privileges.
> Learn about the history of the land you inhabit -- both the history of the land and ways to individually work towards protecting and upholding the sacredness of it.

Mezzo-level (within a small-to-medium-sized community, i.e., school, parish, etc.)
> Integrate land-acknowledgments into your community events.

Macro-level (institutional or policy-driven change)
> Join Pax Christi USA in calling on the Church to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery. Create a petition, mobilize your community, and make your collective voices heard. Send us information about and photos of the actions you have taken so we can compile and use them in our work to have the Church reject the doctrine. Send your actions and events to me at [email protected]. Even macro-level change is still only breaking the surface for work needing to be done, but each stage is monumental when confronting centuries of complacency.
> Hold a public event to raise awareness of the harm the Doctrine of Discovery has done. Pax Christi Massachusetts and Pax Christi Maine have taken statewide action already.
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