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PDF versionHappy Columbus Day
by Michael Sean Winters on Oct. 11, 2010
This morning, protesters will gather at the foot of a statue to Christopher Columbus outside Washington D.C.'s Union Station. Some years they throw blood on the statue. They charge Columbus with bringing cruelty and slavery to the New World, and you can read, at Huffington Post this morning, a synopsis of the crimes the Columbus-haters accuse him of perpetrating.
But, Columbus also brought the Gospel with him to the New World. Yes, the good news of Jesus Christ was carried by men who shared all the prejudices, the violence, and the cruelty of late-fifteenth century Europeans. Columbus did not only bring Christ, he brought Christians, and those Christians often did unspeakably horrible things. Yet, despite this legacy of cruelty, there is another legacy, a legacy of those, especially Catholic priests, who defended the native peoples from the militaristic adventurers who made up most of Columbus's - and subsequent - crews.
Columbus Day was originally made a holiday out of deference to Italians who wanted to celebrate one of their own. But, in our own day, I think it is especially valuable to celebrate this holiday because it reminds Americans that the new world did not begin with the nasty Puritans who landed in the colder climes. As more and more immigrants come to the United States from Latin America, they bring with them a culture that cannot be understood or explained without reference to the Iberian Catholicism that Columbus brought to the New World. That Catholicism mixed with native culture in fascinating and fecund ways, certainly in ways that were more accepting of native culture than was found in the Protestant colonies that so shaped the development of U.S. culture.
I was shocked this morning to find the local elementary school filled with children heading to classes. Yes, they should be taught the whole truth about the crimes that were committed by Columbus and those who followed. But, they should also be taught that a culture grew out of the meeting of Catholic Spaniards and Portugese, a culture that continues in the societies of our neighbors to the south. It may have been born in cruelty, but it has perdured with incredible beauty and profound familial ties that have enabled it to resist better than we in the U.S. the onslaught of an increasingly sterile consumer culture most notable for its conformism and its shallowness.
We need not celebrate everything Columbus did, nor whitewash the history of his doings, to celebrate the fact that with his "discovery" something genuinely new and humane and Christian came of it.
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" Yet, despite this legacy of
" Yet, despite this legacy of cruelty, there is another legacy, a legacy of those, especially Catholic priests, who defended the native peoples from the militaristic adventurers who made up most of Columbus's - and subsequent - crews.... We need not celebrate everything Columbus did, nor whitewash the history of his doings, to celebrate the fact that with his "discovery" something genuinely new and humane and Christian came of it."
Our church and our country honestly do want to "accentuate the positive". But we also need to acknowledge and admit the sinful reality that is an integral aspect and fact of the "Encounter". Had it not been for our Lady of Guadalupe, the first true Evangelizer to the Americas, the indigenous population would have disappeared. As it happened, the "natives" were only decimated, to put it kindly.
That sinful reality continues being an integral aspect and fact of the attitudes, policies and practices of our government and individuals. Terms like "illegal immigrants", "undocumented workers","border fence", "anchor babies", "Mexican drug lords, dealers and mules", "Latino gangs, "federal, state and militia patrols" reflect the darker (and documented) legacy introduced by Columbus.
My heritage is Hispanic and indigenous. When Columbus landed, he brought with him some of my ancestors from Spain. Here they met and mated with some of my "native" ancestors. I am a "mestizo", a member of "la Raza Cósmica", the Cosmic Race. We have survived thanks to la Morenita who said "yes" to our Creator's desire that his family come Home to him united as sisters and brothers by fulfilling and realizing the "preferential option for the poor" that the loving "Empress of the Americas" proclaimed to San Juan Diego, "the least of my children", when she declared, "Am I not here who am your Mother?"
Our Lady of Guadalupe came to us "full of grace" and promised to be with us as we made our way Home. While she did bring us the Good News that "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!", she also reminded us then and today that God is with us, but that he is still suffering on the Cross with his poor sisters and brothers who are not truly welcomed at our national and personal tables. Like Lazarus, they still grovel and beg for the crumbs that may fall.
Today should be a day of recollection, reflection and reconcilliation. Our celebration should be focused and expressed by the way we walk with the least of God's children.
¡Venga Tu reino! ¡Venga por María!
Paz y Bien, Rolando, SFO.
Christopher Columbus is a
Christopher Columbus is a fucking vile murderous pig !. He should never have existed in the first place, let alone travel to the New World !. He is a man working for the Devil !. The first European to reach the New World is the Viking adventurer Leif Eriksson in the eleventh century. He discovered Newfoundland and Labrador. Columbus is not a real discoverer of America because he only found a few tiny islands in the Caribbean. He was also proud and arrogant in his lifetime. He was a braggart and was too sure of himself. He enslaved, killed and chopped up hundreds of millions of Indians. He was the Jeffrey Dahmer and John Awayne Gacy of his time. I would love an abolition of Columbus Day for my Birthday (April 11th). I wish Christopher Columbus was never born !. He should have hanged for his crimes !.
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