The Pope’s apology

Some years ago, at one of those annual Flame Tree Arts Festivals, I came across an art booth sponsored by Robert Hunter, an employee of the CNMI Arts Council. In this particular booth, Mr. Hunter, a local artist, displayed some of his best work, most of which were comprised of paintings. Among those various paintings stood a disturbing depiction of Western missionaries–Catholic Christians–slaughtering a bunch of ignorant island natives, forcing them into conversion (and total submission) at the point of a sword.

I vividly remember this painting, because I thought it was extremely disturbing at the time. I regarded it as outrageous, surreal, and downright sacrilegious. It struck me as pure heresy, and I nearly felt compelled to call for its swift censorship. How dare Mr. Hunter paint such lies. How dare he portray such filth.

In response to my concerns, Mr. Hunter patiently explained that what he depicted was, in fact, exactly what had happened many years ago. It was merely history, he insisted. Such disturbing brutalities actually did occur; the Catholic missionaries perpetrated it. They forced the Pacific Islanders to accept Jesus Christ or die, and there was nothing voluntary about accepting the faith.

Since I was somewhat of a devout Catholic at the time, I naturally could not accept this historical reality. As a true Catholic believer, I irrationally refused to believe that Catholic missionaries (including Spanish soldiers) were capable of such horrendous atrocities. (Bear in mind, this was before I read Ayn Rand and became much more educated about the world.)

But today, the holy father himself–the Pope–has admitted it all (well, almost all). He has admitted the enormous sins of Catholics for the past hundreds of years: the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition–the exploitation of millions of Filipinos, Mexicans, and other Catholic oppressed peoples over the centuries.

The Pope has actually proffered a veritable mea culpa. He has recognized the torment leveled at the great Gallileo, Copernicus and the many other brilliant men of reason and science persecuted for their soundness of mind.

Soon the Catholic Church may even fess up to the Jewish people by admitting their role vis-à-vis Adolf Hitler and the Nazis during World War II: how they countenanced the German fascists in Italy and failed to adequately protest the Holocaust.

“We cannot not recognize the betrayal of the Gospel committed by some of our brothers, especially in the second millennium,” said Pope John Paul II, belatedly.

Tell it to Socrates, who was forced to drink poison for being of sound, rational mind. Tell it to the witches burned at the stake for irregular mysticism. Tell it to the six million silenced Jews, who never had the chance to hear an apology before the ovens blasted and the showers emitted lethal gases.