Denver, Colo., May 2, 2017 / 05:24 pm (CNA).-
The historical legacy of Christopher Columbus is tarred by bad history in the quest to change Columbus Day, according to a researcher who has focused on Columbus’ religious motives for exploration.
“They’re blaming Columbus for the things he didn’t do. It was mostly the people who came after, the settlers,” Prof. Carol Delaney told CNA April 25. “I just think he’s been terribly maligned.”
“I think a lot of people don’t know anything much, really about Columbus,” said Delaney, an anthropology professor emerita at Stanford University and the author of the 2011 book “Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem.”
She said Columbus initially had a favorable impression of many of the Native Americans he met and instructed the men under his command not to abuse them but to trade with them. At one point Columbus hung some of his own men who had committed crimes against the Indians.
“When I read his own writings and the documents of those who knew him, he seemed to be very much on the side of the Indians,” Delaney said, noting that Columbus adopted the son of a Native American leader he had befriended.
Columbus is again in the news in Colorado, which in 1907 became the first U.S. state to make Columbus Day an official holiday.
Now, one Colorado legislator aims to repeal Columbus Day as a state holiday.
State Rep. Joe Salazar’s 2017 bill charges that Columbus’ voyage “triggered one of history’s greatest slave trades” and created “a level of inhumanity towards indigenous peoples that still exists.”
The bill excerpts three paragraphs from the writings of Bartolome de las Casas, a Spanish Dominican friar born in 1484 who became the first Bishop of Chiapas, Mexico and advocated for indigenous Americans. He wrote strong polemics against Spanish abuses.
Bishop De las Casas depicted the Spaniards as “acting like ravening beasts, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before.” De las Casas claimed that the native population of Hispaniola was reduced to 200 people from 3 million.
He said the Spanish killed “such an infinite number of souls” due to lust for gold caused by “their insatiable greed and ambition.” He charged that the Spanish attacked towns and did not spare children, the elderly or pregnant women. He said they stabbed and dismembered them “as if dealing with sheep in the slaughter house” and made bets on how efficiently they could kill.
Salazar’s bill describes these as “Columbus’ acts of inhumanity.”
Delaney, however, emphasized that the acts of the colonists need to be distinguished from those of Columbus.
Bishop De las Casas’ own view on Columbus is more complex, she said. Other scholars have noted that Las Casas admired Columbus and said he and Spain had a providential role in “opening the doors of the Ocean Sea.” The bishop thought Columbus was treated unjustly by the Spanish monarchs after he was accused of mismanagement.
De las Casas himself is not above criticism. He owned indigenous people as slaves before changing his mind on their mistreatment. At one point he suggested to the Pope that black Africans be enslaved as an alternative to enslaving Native Americans.
Among the critics of the Colorado bill are the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternity founded in 1882, which takes its name from the explorer who brought Christianity to the New World. Columbus was a widely admired Catholic at a time when American Catholics were marginalized.
“Scholars have long shown that de las Casas was prone to hyperbole and exaggeration, and the bill does not take into account recent scholarship on de las Casas or Columbus,” the Knights said in an email to members.
“The legacy and accomplishments of Christopher Columbus deserve to be celebrated. He was a man ahead of his time and a fearless explorer and brilliant navigator whose daring discovery changed the course of history,” the group continued. “Columbus has frequently been falsely blamed for the actions of those who came after him and is the victim of horrific slanders concerning his conduct.”
Isaac Cuevas, a spokesman for the Knights of Columbus, was even more forceful, connecting the move against Columbus Day to a dark period in Colorado’s past.
“Nearly a century ago, the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado targeted Catholics including Italian-Americans. One of the Klan’s tactics throughout the United States was the denigration of Christopher Columbus and the attempted suppression of the holiday in his honor,” he said.
Cuevas said that a committee hearing on the bill was “tinged with offensive anti-Catholic overtones.” He charged that the bill “takes us back to what the Klan outlined in the 1920s in order to promote ethnic and religious resentment and marginalize and intimidate people with different religious beliefs and ethnic backgrounds.”
Rep. Salazar put forward a bill in previous years against the Christopher Columbus holiday. His 2016 bill to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day was defeated in the state legislature.
“After speaking with the American Indian community and other communities, they were saying, ‘We actually never really wanted a day – this isn’t what this is about. This is about removing a state holiday about a man who engaged in genocide against our people’,” Salazar told the Colorado Statesman newspaper recently.
Columbus Day drew particular controversy in Colorado on the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the New World. Organizers of Denver’s 1992 Columbus Day parade canceled it at the last minute due to threats from radical activists with the American Indian Movement.
Columbus has been a major figure for Catholics in America, especially Italian-Americans, who saw his pioneering voyage from Europe as a way of validating their presence in a sometimes hostile majority-Protestant country. The Knights of Columbus, the largest Catholic fraternal organization in the world, took his name, his voyage and his faith as an inspiration.
At one point in the nineteenth century there were even proposals to push for the voyager’s canonization.
In 1892, the quadricennial of Columbus’ first voyage, Leo XIII authored an encyclical that reflected on Columbus’ desire to spread Catholic Christianity. The Pope stressed how Columbus’ Catholic faith motivated his voyage and supported him amid his setbacks.
Under pressure from some Native American activists and their allies, some U.S. localities have dropped observances of Columbus Day, while others have added observances intended to recognize those who lived in the Americas before Columbus sailed.
Delaney acknowledged that some Native Americans were sent to Spain as slaves or conscripted into hard labor at the time Columbus had responsibility for the region, but she attributed this mistreatment to his substitutes acting in his absence.
She thinks Columbus Day should be continued, even if the indigenous peoples of America also deserve recognition.
For her, Columbus’ handling of the killings of his crew showed restraint. After his ship the Santa Maria ran aground on his first voyage, he left 39 men on a Caribbean island with firm orders not to go marauding, not to kidnap or rape women, and always trade for food and gold.
“When they returned on the second voyage, they found all of the settlers had been killed,” she said. The priest on that voyage wanted to attack the locals and kill all of their people in revenge, but Columbus strongly refused to make such a move.
She noted the explorer’s relationship with a Native American leader on Hispaniola, a Taino chief named Guacanagari. Columbus had very good relations with him and adopted one of his sons. That son took the name of Columbus’ natural son, Diego, and accompanied Columbus on his final three voyages.
Columbus on his second return voyage took six Indians back to Spain, but not as slaves.
“He took them because they wanted to go,” Delaney said.
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It’ll be named a cardinal by F1 in 3,2,1…while the bishop will still be a bishop, but a good one… There are just a few around…
I agree that the St. Michael Prayer should not be forced on people at the end of Mass in a public manner. When I’ve seen this done, it precedes the recessional song and precedes the exit of the clergy, so the prayer is in fact Mass-adjacent and forced upon people in the pews. I also disagree with public praying of the rosary in the nave immediately before or after Mass. Don’t foist your preferred spiritual expressions on others in the nave.
Let the Mass be the Mass. Let people pray in silence before and after Mass.
The practice smacks of superstition, as if we need to add something more to the Mass because Mass isn’t enough.
Why would you say that praying to St. Michael smacks of superstition? What is superstitious about praying to St. Michael?Exorcists are warning that evil is ramping up and that the demonic is increasing all across our country. We need St. Michael now more than ever. And then your comment about praying the Rosary, it sounds like you don’t appreciate the power of the Rosary or how often Our Lady in her apparitions has asked that the Rosary be prayed. As Teresa of Avila once said, “Lord, deliver us from sour-faced saints.”
It’s not an extension of the mass, it’s imploring a saint for help. It’s a short prayer so couldn’t anyone literally hold their breath and then exhale to do their meditation afterwards?
EWTN does it and also begs for laborers; I don’t think it diminishes the mass effect and worship in the least.
So don’t pray them. What could be easier.
Your thought that praying the Rosary and/or the prayer to St. Michael demonstrates a superstitious attempt to add something to the Mass seems to me a kind of spiritual blindness.
Superstition? You need to evaluate your Catholic teaching and knowledge.
When we pray the Rosary before Mass we are meditating on Our Lords life, it prepares us for the celebration of Mass
God bless the good bishop for speaking up in defense of St. Michael’s
prayer. I attend a church where once the Mass is ended and dismissal offered,
the priest and people, myself included, fervently say the prayer. Given the
horrors of contemporary wars, the dishonesty of so many of our institutions,
the tragic loss of innocent lives, the prayer is most appropriate. As Fr.
deSouza wrote in the original column, “evil abounds.” The prayer, which I
well remember as a child, should never have been removed from the liturgy.
The article is unfortunately 1) vague and 2) incorrect in that it states 1) the prayer was used liturgically “until the Vatican II era” and 2) was a “feature of the mass.” As many on here already well know, the so-called Leonine (Leo XIII) prayers were imposed only for low masses (which didn’t even include any procession or singing to be interrupted – to respond to Scott Walker’s comment – and were done by the priest and people, with the priest kneeling on the altar steps, already having ended mass and typically while carrying the sacred vessels in hand. It was a public devotion outside the mass, and included several other prayers, such as the Hail Holy Queen, three Hail Marys, a prayer for the Church, the St. Michael prayer, and ending with three invocations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (therefore ending on a God-centered note). Low masses already ended with the “last gospel” – the first chapter of John, so the issue of “being sent forth” being interrupted makes little sense (yes, I realize the last gospel was suppressed in the revised mass, but still). St. Paul VI suppressed the public Leonine prayers as a required practice in 1964, yes, but it was hardly “banned.” Given the onslaught of evil that is glaringly obviously spreading throughout the world, a quick St. Michael prayer done by the people spontaneously (which is how I usually encounter it) is most welcome. Who could have a problem with that? Snobs? Purists? People who are emotionally allergic to traditional prayers or piety? If the latter, that might be something to take up with a spiritual director.
Yes, everyone is agreed that evil abounds and has been growing all around us for some time. This despite the growth of such devotions as the Rosary and the prayer to St Michael. And there is a Mass said every second of every day somewhere in the world.
How come evil does abound then ?
The evil in the world does not have to become man’s resting place. We are free to develop the alternative, to pray and to act with grace, out of the pit of sin. The Resurrection teaches that. Our first parents, choosing sin instead of paradise, led to us being where we are. The life, death and Resurrection of the Incarnate Word, together with His Church, however, offer us the faith, hope, and love as the alternative to the sinful world.
How do we know that devotional prayer has ‘grown’ over time? The efficacy of prayer relies on the grace of God and the holiness of the prayer.
Imagine the state of evil in the world if there were no Mass and no prayer. I would guess that we hain’t seen nothing yet of the power of evil if we were to stop entreaties to the Power of grace to compensate and to overcome.
Yeah, the St. Michael’s prayer at the end of Mass is the most egregious liturgical abuse today. Give me a break. Clearly the priest has an agenda.
For the priest objecting to the St. Michael prayer, where is his objection to clapping for the cookie ladies and the choir and everyone else at Mass? There are real abuses to be concerned about rather than praying for St. Michael’s guardianship. Get a grip.
the cookie ladies? who said Catholics don’t have a sense of humor; thank you for the chuckle
It reminds me of the lunch ladies 1-8 grades at the Catholic school I attended; good food and they worked for little money but mostly gratitude. We were not allowed to waste food – now food waste is almost a mortal sin in many schools
Fr. Bednar is clearly from the generation of priests who believe Vatican II is the be all and end all of Catholicism. His generation and their fanatical adoption of the “spirit of Vatican II” have literally emptied the pews. The damage done to souls is astronomical. Pray for them; they will have one heck of an accounting to make at their judgment.
The St Michael prayer was written by a holy Pope who warned of Freemasonry seeking to destroy the Church.
The St Michael prayer was cancel-cultured once the Freemasonic destruction of the church was underway 1962-2024.
I read the article in the Wall Street Journal. I did not think it deserved a response.
Now we see these debates over the liturgy.
I was an usher in a Catholic Church in the 1960’s. We agreed if we encountered a serious threat, we would defer to our usher was a police officer.
Fast forward to 2024.
We now live, or die, with gun violence.
St. Micheal is the Patron Saint of Police Officers. The “TOP COP”.
We can use St. Michael and local Police Officers to protect us from gun violence at religious events.
When I was growing up in the 70’s I don’t remember our church being locked, maybe it was at night.
Mr Schmiedeler:
I hope you meant criminal violence in your comment above. A gun is a tool, with no mind or will of its own. It’s a tool that is often unfortunately used for evil and violent acts against mankind, but it’s a tool nonetheless. There is literally is no such thing as gun violence. That terminology is a fabricated lie created by liberals and the mainstream media to distract from the real problem of criminal violence which is stemming from drugs, human trafficking/exploitation,
gangs, (coming across our wide-open southern border) and our increasingly Godless society. If there were such a thing, we’d have to build prisons and for pistols, rifles and shotguns.
I believe that ushers and sacristans should be trained and armed in the event of a violent act by some crazy criminal during Mass, especially if a bishop is present.
Fr.Bednar is a bit suspect.Why should he object to a prayer that has been in the church for so many years.What is his agenda??!! His background should be looked into….
Fr. Bednar comes with a lot of backstory baggage. Currently a retired priest in residence at a parish in Cleveland, he once penned a book lauding Jesuit theologian William Lynch. If I understand correctly, Lynch believed, controverting scholastic and Church teaching on faith and on imagination, that imagination somehow analogically is akin to faith. America has republished a 1943 Lynch article at http://www.americamagazine.org/voices/william-lynch. Commonweal also has an article lauding Lynch. A synopsis of Bednar’s book can be read at http://www.ebay.com/itm/Faith-as-Imagination-The-Contribut-Bednar-Gerald.
Long and short, Fr. Bednar is likely near his life’s end, after a probable lifetime of having seen modernist dreams of his church wafting away as his own lifeblood waned. Then someone offered him the WSJ venue as a means of renewing an aged and infirm man so blood running cold could flow more freely on imagined faith.
Bednar, Lynch, and the ilk of the faith of such fellows speaks against Church practices which arose long before them and VCII. The praying of this prayer will survive long after our day.
Neither Lynch, Bednar nor any progressive modernist can cite evidence against its efficacy on anything other than imaginary grounds.
See the ancient history, beauty, and validity of the St. Michael Prayer at catholiceducation.org/en/culture/the-prayer-to-st-michael.html
The prayer is ***NOT PART OF THE MASS***. ANY PERSON SUBJECTED TO IT against his will AFTER MASS HAS ENDED IN A CATHOLIC CHURCH IS FREE TO VISIT THE REST ROOM, PLUG IN EARPHONES, OR EXIT THE CHURCH, AND GOOD RIDDANCE.
Good and victorious St. Michael the Archangel, as guardian of nations, we thank you for your protection. We praise and thank God for you.