Indigenous grandmas nearly kicked out of Vatican

I'm not particularly anti-Catholic but it does seem to me that when amends are due an institution that requires confession and penitence should be at the forefront, eh?
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original-indiancountry

Indigenous grandmas nearly kicked out of Vatican
by: Rob Capriccioso


ROME - They went to pray. They went to see Pope Benedict XVI on his home turf. They went to ask that he rescind historic church doctrine that played a role in the genocidal onslaught of millions of indigenous people worldwide.

For 13 indigenous grandmothers, accomplishing only one of their three goals wouldn't have been so bad - had they also not been harassed by several Vatican policemen who claimed the women were conducting ''anti-Catholic'' demonstrations.

The elders, formally known as the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, convened in the morning hours of July 9 at St. Peter's Square. After setting up an altar cloth, candles and sacred objects, including feathers and incense, they began holding a prayer and ceremony circle. Nine-year-old Davian Joell Stand-Gilpin, a direct descendant of Chief Dull Knife of the Lakota Nation, was brought along by one of the grandmothers to participate in traditional regalia.

Soon, however, four Vatican police officials asked the women to stop the prayer ceremony, claiming their prayers were in contradiction to the church's teachings - despite the two crosses on the alter cloth and some of the members being practitioners of the Catholic faith.

The officials told Carole Hart, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning producer and filmmaker traveling with the grandmas, that the group was in violation of Vatican policy. They said a permit Hart had obtained in order to document the prayer gathering was only relevant in terms of filming, but did not allow the women to pray, sing or burn incense.

The police said the actions of the grandmothers were ''idolatrous.''

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complete article here

to let people conduct their own religious ceremonies on its property.

Indigenous peoples and supporters seek the formal revocation of the
1493 papal bull "Inter Caetera." This decree was issued by the Vatican
to Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the Caribbean. Along
with the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, it sought to establish Christian
dominion over the world and called for the subjugation of non-Christian
peoples and seizure of their lands. As a result, an estimated 100 million
indigenous peoples were killed off in the process of Europe's colonization
of the indigenous world.

This papal edict has never been repealed and is
the foundation-stone of the current international system of law, and
directly related to the corporate-state-military plunder and rape of
the planet, which is sometimes linked to the phenomenon known as
"globalization."

defense against, raping them and tearing their children away from their parents to ship them to mission schools so they could be deprived of their own language and culture, you don't think the Vatican is *obligated* to let 'em pray on the grounds? What would it take to oblige the Vatican to let thirteen passive unarmed grandmothers onto the grounds and be treated with respect? To meet w/ the Pope and have the Church right a wrong, at least symbolically? It's not like it's gonna cost any money,like the pedophile priests.

not even after that. You don't have a right to go into any mosque, synagogue or church and conduct your own religious ceremonies, no matter what crimes have been committed by members of those denominations in the past.

But they surely have the moral and the human right, and therein lies the beauty of nonviolent civil disobedience.