It’s easy to dismiss as irrelevant and “too little, too late” the decision by the Catholic Church this week to formally reject 15th-century papal edicts that empowered Europeans to colonise non-Christian lands.
The edicts were predicated on the belief that indigenous peoples were inferior – effectively the value system which enabled mainly Europeans, not just Catholics, to conquer and acquire foreign lands and impose their beliefs there.
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Colonialism was, of course, much more than the imposition of a set of values, it was a system designed to exploit the lands and resources of people who were not technologically powerful enough to resist modern weaponry.
The Vatican’s acknowledgement of the wrongs of the past is important because it urges people to confront their own moral compass, especially those who seek to excuse colonialism by insisting that it “wasn’t all bad” and that those who carried it out were merely “people of their times”.
That is an important step in encouraging open discussion about the past and an important part of the process of healing and reconciliation.
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Without honest acknowledgement of the sins of the fathers, the generations which followed will forever carry that psychic burden – like it or not – in their souls.
