“The memory of a glorious past cannot deliberately leave out the dark episodes related to the process of evangelization in Latin America”. Pope Benedict XVI recalled the various stages of his trip to Latin America during his first audience back in Italy, for the purpose of clarifying some events that caused harsh criticism. The main reference he made was to the issue of the natives. In Brazil, during the inaugural speech he gave at the Latin American Episcopal Conference, he did not mention at all the blood spilled by the natives at fault to the European colonization and to the following evangelization and this fact deeply hurt the feelings of the native communities.

What happened. ‘The preach of Christ’s Gospel did not, at any time, did any harm to the precolombian cultures, nor it was an imposition by force of a foreign culture’. These words pronounced by the Pope in Brazil really upset the indigenous people. ‘The Pope has been really arrogant and what he said is not true’, commented Gesinaldo Sateré Mawé, the director of an umbrella group of Amazonian native groups. ‘Human history shows that evangelization was a strategy in that process of colonization in which so many indigenous populations were killed ’. And today, in front of 50,000 people gathered in San Peter’s Square in Rome, Benedict XVI explicitly referred to ‘the sufferings and injustices the colonizer imposed on the native people, often trampled on their fundamental human rights’, but however ‘what happened should not prevent them from being grateful for the wonderful actions the grace of God brought about among the natives in these centuries’.

The new speech. However, the Pope underlined yet again that ‘in that part of the world, the Gospel has become the basic element of a dynamic synthesis that expresses, through many facets, the identity of the Latin American population. Moreover, he asserted that, in the era of globalisation, Catholicism ‘is the most suitable answer, but only if it is driven by a solid spiritual training and by the principles of the social doctrine of the Church’. And then a passing reference to the role of the Church in Brazil: ‘Christian values are deeply rooted in this country, but at the same time there are many social and economic problems. The main task of the Church is to gather together the spiritual and moral forces in the search for an agreement joining with other healthy forces in the country’. He mentioned then the Liberation Theology, so popular in Brazil: apart from ‘reductionist interpretations’ of the Gospel, ‘Christian culture can promote a reconciliation between men and the universe’ he said, ‘starting from the recovery of the personal dignity in the relation with God’. In the end, he thanked the Brazilians for ‘the warm and moving welcome they gave me’.

No apologies. The Pope, therefore, tried to make up for the stance adopted by the Church on the issue of the indigenous people, taken by John Paul II years ago. But his speech is not that admission of guilt the indigenous people were waiting for and that the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez loudly demanded. ‘As a president, I’m asking His Holiness to apologise’, he said. ‘I just cannot understand how he can maintain that evangelization was not imposed by force, as they came here with guns and they made their way through blood and fire. The memories of those who were killed are still really vivid. This Holocaust was even worst than in the II World War and nor the Pope nor anyone else can deny this’. Everyone’s wondering if today’ speech will be enough to make up for the offence the indigenous people took all over Latin America.