The Language of Politics

May 23, 2007 Pope Softens Remarks on Conversion of Natives By IAN FISHER ROME, May 23 — Pope Benedict XVI tried today to quell anger in South America over his recent comments on the conversion of native populations there, acknowledging today that “unjustifiable crimes” were committed in the European conquest of the continent five centuries ago. Speaking in Italian to a weekly audience here, the pope said that it was “not possible to forget the suffering and the injustices inflicted by colonizers against the indigenous population, whose fundamental human rights were often trampled.” In a speech in Brazil last week, the pope sparked controversy by saying that native populations had been “silently longing” for the Christian faith brought to South America by colonizers. “The proclamation of Jesus and of his Gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-Columbus cultures, nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture,” he said in Brazil. The speech infuriated many leaders and indigenous groups in South America, and in some ways echoed the broader and more violent reaction in Muslim countries last year when the pope quoted a 14th century emperor who described Islam as “evil and inhuman.” The South Americans cited the standard historical view that Spanish and Portuguese colonizers forced the conversion of natives by making them choose between “the cross and the sword.” President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela demanded that the pope apologize, and one indigenous group in Ecuador said that “representatives of the Catholic Church of those times, with honorable exceptions, were accomplices, deceivers and beneficiaries of one of the most horrific genocides of all humanity.” After touching a nerve with his remarks on Islam last year, the pope apologized for the violent reaction. But this time, Benedict repeated his claim that Catholicism in South America had favorably “shaped their culture for 500 years.” “While we do not overlook the various injustices and sufferings which accompanied colonization, the Gospel has expressed and continues to express the identity of the peoples in this region, and provides inspiration to address the challenges of our globalized era,” he told pilgrims in St. Peters’ Square today, speaking in English. In the pope’s regular Wednesday public audiences, he ordinarily delivers a lengthy address in Italian, with shorter summaries in other languages. The pope’s repetition of his qualification in English seemed to underscore the Vatican’s desire to soften his earlier words. After the speech on Islam, and again after the Brazil trip, the pope, whose career before becoming pope was more concerned with theology than public policy, faced criticism for what some critics, as well as some supporters, say is a tin ear for the political implications of his words. His clarification today echoed an apology the Catholic church made in Brazil in 2000 for the “sins and errors” committed against native populations and blacks there over the preceding 500 years.