"A New Pope and Old Wounds": Indigenous Perspectives on the Catholic Church
“We are not seeking salvation — we are seeking respect, justice, and the restoration of what was stolen in the name of Christ.” — John Gonzalez, Standing Bear Network
Reading that the new pope is a polyglot from Chicago with deep ties to Peru, progressive Catholics and non-Catholics alike exhaled, daring to hope his bond with a culture besides his own will empathetically influence his papacy. We are daring to hope that he will not just sit on the throne of St. Peter, but that he will carry the torch, that he will lead with the compassion Pope Francis did.
Before he became Pope Leo XIV, Father Robert Prevost did extensive missionary work in Chulucanas and Trujillo, Peru, for almost 15 years in the 80s and 90s. He returned to Peru in 2015, Chiclayo this time, and is remembered for wading through muddy, flooded roads to other villages, for bringing food and blankets to remote villages in the Andes, and for being the “driving force” in securing two oxygen-producing plants during the pandemic.1
But.
We can’t champion any missionary humanitarianism without also acknowledging its colonialist atrocities, for which many Christian denominations still must reconcile.
In a beautiful post titled “A New Pope, Old Wounds, and the Path Forward — An Indigenous Reflection on Pope Leo XIV”, John Gonzalez of the U.S.-based Standing Bear Network spoke of the fundamental need for respecting existing cultures and traditions if Pope Leo is to successfully “build bridges” with Indigenous communities.
“If he is to walk beside us, he must come not as a teacher, but as a guest. Not as a savior, but as a learner,” Gonzalez wrote.
National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak is a member of Pinaymootang First Nation in Manitoba.
“I invite His Holiness to continue the important work of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, especially those who suffered the harms of residential schools. We must continue dialogue on many issues including repatriation of sacred First Nations items housed in the Vatican,” Chief Woodhouse Nepinak said on behalf of the Assembly of First Nations.2
Gonzalez is specifically calling for transformation, not just continuity.
“But this Pope, like the one before him, speaks of bridges.
He says he wants to walk with the poor. To reach those forgotten.
He says he respects the work of Pope Francis, who came to our lands, apologized for the Church’s role in the genocide of residential schools, and asked for forgiveness — even if the Doctrine of Discovery still hangs like a ghost in Vatican vaults.
Pope Leo XIV brings with him the promise of continuity — to build on what was started. But we do not need continuation. We need transformation.”
In April of 2022, “… a delegation of 32 Indigenous Elders, knowledge keepers, residential school survivors, and youth – as well as support staff – journeyed together from across the country to meet with Pope Francis, accompanied by a small group of Canadian Bishops. Métis, Inuit and First Nations delegations met with the Holy Father over three days.”3 These are the three largest Indigenous groups in Canada.4
Pope Francis issued to them the first official apology of the Catholic Church for its role in operating up to 70% of the residential schools that operated from the 1870s all the way until 1996, when the last of approximately 80 of them closed. 150,000 children were taken from their homes and forced into these schools.5 Abuse and malnutrition were rampant. Authorities are still trying to determine how many children died.6
“For the deplorable conduct of these members of the Catholic Church, I ask for God’s forgiveness and I want to say to you with all my heart, I am very sorry. And I join my brothers, the Canadian bishops, in asking your pardon.”7
He promised to travel to Canada to apologize on Canadian soil.
That July, in what he called a “pilgrimage of penance”, Pope Francis visited three Indigenous communities.
He visited Maskwacis first, the site of the former Ermineskin Residential School.
He brought a pair of small moccasins that the Indigenous delegation had gifted him in April, with the request that he return them once in Canada to symbolize all the children who never returned home.8
On the pope’s second stop, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reiterated the specific verbiage the Truth and Reconciliation Commission originally demanded of the Catholic Church: that they apologize “as an institution” for the Vatican’s role in the “spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical and sexual” abuse of Indigenous children, instead of just condemning the local churches and individuals who carried it out.9
“I want to tell you how very sorry I am and to ask forgiveness for the evil perpetrated by not just a few Catholics in these schools who contributed to the policies of cultural assimilation,” he told Nunavut survivors of the residential schools at a gathering in Iqaluit, his third stop.10
As many have pointed out, he didn’t just apologize. He asked for forgiveness.
This was absolutely necessary. But it also isn’t enough.
“Renouncing and formally revoking the ‘Inter Caetera’ 1493 Doctrine of Discovery is an essential step for advancing reconciliation and the healing path forward. So too are immediate calls to return diocese land back to First Nations and returning sacred items currently being held both in storage and on public display at the Vatican,” Assembly of First Nations Chief Archibald and Chief Antoine shared in a reflection.11
They continued, “At sites in Maskwacis, Québec, and Iqaluit, Pope Francis delivered penitential speeches to First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples but stopped short of denouncing the Catholic Church’s role in creating systems that spiritually, culturally, emotionally, and physically abused and killed First Nations, Inuit and Métis children. He also failed to address the aforementioned calls to action.”12
Pope Leo has the opportunity to humbly accept the Indigenous invitation to answer these calls to action.
He can start by rescinding the so-called “Doctrine of Discovery”, Pope Alexander VI’s 1493 root-of-all-evil Papal Bull. The Bull Inter Caetera was a foundational document in formalizing and institutionalizing the Spanish conquest of the “New World”.
“The Bull stated that any land not inhabited by Christians was available to be ‘discovered,’ claimed, and exploited by Christian rulers and declared that ‘the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself.’ This ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ became the basis of all European claims in the Americas as well as the foundation for the United States’ western expansion. In the US Supreme Court in the 1823 case Johnson v. McIntosh, Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in the unanimous decision held ‘that the principle of discovery gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands.’ In essence, American Indians had only a right of occupancy, which could be abolished.”13
Catholics and others have been petitioning the Vatican since Pope John Paul II’s papacy to formally revoke it.
As Pope Leo’s service begins, Indigenous communities are reminding the world how much work must be done.
Amplify their voice and their specific calls to action. Apologies are not enough. Share their messages on your platforms and with your family and friends.
You can read the full text of the reflection John Gonzalez wrote for Standing Bear Network below with the image he shared. You can leave your appreciation on their original post here and follow their advocacy online to keep learning.
They say his name is Pope Leo XIV, and that he is the first to come from the United States. But to us, the First Peoples of these lands — the ones whose stories stretch back to the rivers, stars, and stones — we do not judge leaders by their titles, but by their relationship to the truth.
And so, we look closely.
Before the white smoke rose in Rome, Robert Francis Prevost spent years in Peru, walking among Indigenous peoples in the Andes. He was a missionary there — a man of the Church bringing his teachings into communities that already had their own ways of praying, healing, and knowing the land. Some say he offered education and support. Others know the weight that always follows when priests arrive with crosses in one hand and promises in the other.
He is no stranger to our communities — not by name, but by role.
A missionary.
To many of our ancestors, that meant more than faith. It meant the dismantling of language, the replacing of ceremony, the burning of sacred objects.
But this Pope, like the one before him, speaks of bridges.
He says he wants to walk with the poor. To reach those forgotten.
He says he respects the work of Pope Francis, who came to our lands, apologized for the Church’s role in the genocide of residential schools, and asked for forgiveness — even if the Doctrine of Discovery still hangs like a ghost in Vatican vaults.
Pope Leo XIV brings with him the promise of continuity — to build on what was started.
But we do not need continuation. We need transformation.
We need a Pope who will not just visit our territories, but return what was taken.
We need more than apologies — we need the Vatican to rescind the very doctrines that declared our lands empty and our lives disposable.
We need our languages supported, our spiritual leaders respected, our sovereignty recognized — not just in words, but in deeds.
If Pope Leo is truly listening, then let him hear this:
We are still here.
We have our own ways.
We are not seeking salvation — we are seeking respect, justice, and the restoration of what was stolen in the name of Christ.
If he is to walk beside us, he must come not as a teacher, but as a guest.
Not as a savior, but as a learner.
Let the bridge he builds be made of truths finally spoken —
and foundations set not in Rome,
but in the lands where our ancestors still whisper to us through the trees.
Tapwe,
Kanipawit Maskwa
John Gonzalez
Standing Bear Network
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewdl4e57v7o
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/reaction-pope-leo-xiv-1.7530647
https://caedm.ca/delegation-to-rome-spring-2022/#:~:text=From%20March%2028%20to%20April,small%20group%20of%20Canadian%20Bishops.
https://time.com/6199934/pope-canada-indigenous-apology/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62296834
https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/residential-school-children-deaths-numbers-1.6182456
https://caedm.ca/delegation-to-rome-spring-2022/#:~:text=From%20March%2028%20to%20April,small%20group%20of%20Canadian%20Bishops.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62296834
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/pope-francis-edged-further-in-apology-justin-trudeau-reminded-him-of-what-s-missing/article_fb882089-7c6b-5e9c-a64b-fcd6ee81434f.html
https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/meet-the-new-pope-will-leo-xiv-follow-franciss-lead-in-indigenous-reconciliation/
https://afn.ca/all-news/news/afn-national-chief-archibald-and-afn-regional-chief-antoine-reflect-on-papal-visit-to-canada/
https://afn.ca/all-news/news/afn-national-chief-archibald-and-afn-regional-chief-antoine-reflect-on-papal-visit-to-canada/
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/doctrine-discovery-1493