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My friend, Byron, was a ‘White Father’ missionary to Africa in one of his lives.   He told me of one remote tribe there, who had no problem with the movement of the sun across the sky.  How did the sun get back east to rise again?  Why, it went back the same way across the sky, but “we can’t see it because it is dark at night.”   Scientists today also noticed it is dark at night, so they explain it with the Big Bang Theory.  Between these two ‘theories’ were millennia of brilliant intellectuals attempting to explain our place in the heavens.  One attempt we know well, came out of Babylon some 2500 years ago.  There, a Priest of the Exile wrote an introduction to the Bible (which had been collated there when the leaders of the Twelve Tribes of Israel were thrown together.)  In that Hymn of Creation, he credited God with creating the natural world, as it was known at that time.  This included the astronomy of the day, with the waters above and the waters below upon which the sun rode around the world.  It also posited a biology of ‘genos’ which was a clearly defined and separate nature for every living being.  That flat world with the sun going over and under it and a Natural Law that defined every living being as unrelated and defined by its own seed, lasted well into our Middle Ages.  The telescope changed everything, as did the microscope.

Pope Francis’ apology to Native Americans refers to a decision made in Europe at the time of Columbus.  At that time, the Grand Inquisitor had enormous power, supposedly to protect the Faith.   In 1492, he expelled all Jews from the lands of Ferdinand and Isabella, including their possessions, based on their lack of ‘Faith’.   We know that the Inquisition also targeted women.  Why?  It was scientifically agreed that women were inferior to men, being mere nurturers of the seed rather than, like men, carrying the God-given seed of procreation.  The ‘Natural Law’ deemed that women should be submissive to men (fathers and husbands).   Women who were not submissive, who led independent lives, went against nature and the Creator of Nature.   At that time, after Columbus returned, it was easy to include natives of the ‘New Lands’ as inferior, based on their lack of faith and a culture that actually allowed women to hold positions of authority.

St. Peter, a married man, wrote in today’s lesson, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of Him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  Today, after Pope Francis’ apology, Native Catholic women along with all other Catholic women are still regarded as inferior and unworthy to share in the royal priesthood, even through marriage.   How does that restriction honour my Creator?

Like a dandelion root that is not completely removed, the double standard within the Catholic clergy, leads to more injustice.      

Agnes Beirne