The Vatican's colonialism and imperialism

I want to look at the Doctrine of Discovery and the conquest ethic of the Catholic Church. I do this because Catholics in Ireland equate conquest, colonialism and imperialism only with Britain, perfectly ignoring these impulses that exist in the Catholic church of the past and present. Surely that is an act of blatant hypocrisy?

In 'Interpreting Northern Ireland' John Whyte wrote:

"The Protestant school flew the Union Jack daily, a practice on which a catholic teacher commented: “They fly the flag down there to show that they are more British than the British themselves. It’s also to let us know that they are the lords and masters and we (Catholics) should be continually aware of it.” 

On the other hand, the catholic school was full of religious symbols, and a Protestant teacher commented: “it’s hard to escape the view that a special show is being put on for our benefit… they must know that these are the very things that we object to, yet still they are flaunted everywhere.”"

There we see a blatant lack of self-awareness.

I've written previously about Ireland's 'parallel monarchy' - "the Papal Crown". (I also wrote about 'Ireland's Capitalist Crown' here.) John W Greenleaf wrote about 'Papal Imperialism'.

Julian Brave NoiseCat wrote:

"The Doctrine of Discovery, a series of papal bulls from the 15th century that justified European colonization of newly “discovered” lands. One particular papal bull, issued by Pope Nicholas V in 1455, authorized Christian nations “to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all ... enemies of Christ,” take their land and “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery." 

The doctrine played a central role in centuries of colonization the world over and resulted in immense loss of land and life by indigenous peoples across the Americas."

Ojibwa wrote in Native American Netroots:

"One example of religious imperialism can be seen in the era following the Age of Discovery which began in the fifteenth century. European kings, and later the United States, used a legal fiction known as the Doctrine of Discovery to justify their acquisition of new territories outside of Europe. Following this doctrine, Christianity is seen as superior to all other religions and therefore Christian monarchs (and later Christian republics such as the United States) have a legal and religious right and even an obligation to impose their rule on all non-Christians."

In his book American Indians and the Law, law professor Bruce Duthu wrote:

"Only Christian colonizers in their encounters with non-Christian peoples could invoke the discovery doctrine. An indigenous seafaring tribe, by contrast, could not plant a flag in the British Isles or on the beaches of Normandy and make comparable claims to England or France under the doctrine."

I looked at being a planter here.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy wrote:

"The Spanish conquest of the Americas sparked a theological, political, and ethical debate about the use of military force to acquire control over foreign lands. This debate took place within the framework of a religious discourse that legitimized military conquest as a way to facilitate the conversion and salvation of indigenous peoples. The idea of a “civilizing mission” was by no means the invention of the British in the nineteenth century. The Spanish conquistadores and colonists explicitly justified their activities in the Americas in terms of a religious mission to bring Christianity to the native peoples. The Crusades provided the initial impetus for developing a legal doctrine that rationalized the conquest and possession of infidel lands. Whereas the Crusades were initially framed as defensive wars to reclaim Christian lands that had been conquered by non-Christians, the resulting theoretical innovations played an important role in subsequent attempts to justify the conquest of the Americas. The core claim was that the “Petrine mandate” to care for the souls of Christ's human flock required Papal jurisdiction over temporal as well as spiritual matters, and this control extended to non-believers as well as believers."

The Progressive Labour Party wrote:

"Francis’s job is to pacify workers who are disillusioned with capitalism and to restore their faith in reforming this rotten system. 

This is nothing new. Going back to feudal times, the Catholic Church has used religion to promote and justify the agenda of the ruling class—along with its own vast business interests. Workers of the world need to see the Pope’s game for what it is: a charade to mislead workers and subvert revolutionary politics. Instead, workers need to channel their anger into support for the Progressive Labor Party, the only organization that can create revolutionary change."

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy wrote:

"The term colony comes from the Latin word colonus, meaning farmer. This root reminds us that the practice of colonialism usually involved the transfer of population to a new territory, where the arrivals lived as permanent settlers while maintaining political allegiance to their country of origin. Imperialism, on the other hand, comes from the Latin term imperium, meaning to command. Thus, the term imperialism draws attention to the way that one country exercises power over another, whether through settlement, sovereignty, or indirect mechanisms of control."

In American they celebrate Columbus Day, so why not in Ireland - Henry II Day perhaps? Edwardian Ireland was religiously apartheid. Even to this day you have to be a Catholic to teach in a Catholic school. I looked at Catholic bigotry here.