The Sovereign Voice issue 4 | Page 75

kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit – by having secured the said faculty, the said King Alfonso, or, by his authority, the aforesaid infante, justly and lawfully has acquired and possessed, and doth possess, these islands, lands, harbors, and seas, and they do of right belong and pertain to the said King Alfonso and his successors... Therefore let no one infringe or with rash boldness contravene this our declaration, constitution, gift, grant, appropriation, decree, supplication, exhortation, injunction, inhibition, mandate, and will. But if anyone should presume to do so, be it known to him that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul....” 4 Bulls (and others) have indeed changed the course of world history, affecting untold amounts of people — especially indigenous societies, with devastating impact on their culture and the wellbeing of our entire earth. Quite frankly, there is such a broad historical narrative that this article is only able to scratch the surface of Christendom with its theological papal-franchise patterning. Research points — at all corners — to stunning revelations of severe oppression to our fellow sisters and brothers. They sanctioned and endorsed worldwide enslavement, slaughter, and theft wherever no other Christian nation had already laid their claim to land. To reiterate simply, the discovery principle from these bulls meant that the Vatican controlled the world. It decreed that man was able to control another. Basic, decent human rights were subject to the beliefs of Holy Roman Church. These genocidal, unnatural “laws” provided an ethical and legal justification for all Christian explorers to confiscate any land and possessions from the inhabitants of “barbarous nations” known as non-Christians. This caused the barbaric killing or displacement of Indigenous peoples, while their sacred lands were raped and pillaged for the accumulation of wealth — and thereby, power — to the “holy” Roman Catholic Church. Papal decrees evolved into the discovery doctrine, which has become the basis for our modern ideology of international law. The doctrine’s dimensional philosophy continues to negatively affect millions of Indigenous Peoples. When engaged in the multi-faceted studies of the “discovery doctrine” one thing is for sure: the subject’s scope is vast. Ramifications of these Papal In 1823, the “Doctrine of Discovery” was actually adopted into U.S. law by its Supreme Court in a notable landmark case, Johnson v. M’Intosh, 21 U.S. 4Romanus Pontifex, as published in European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and its Dependencies to 1648, Frances Gardiner Davenport, editor, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1917, Washington, D.C., at pp. 20-26. Original Latin text is in the same volume, at pp.13-20. TheSovereignVoice.Org