SundayDec 22, 2024
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
It clearly appears that there are no races in the world, however rude, uncultivated, barbarous, gross, or almost brutal they may be, who cannot be persuaded and brought to a good order and way of life, and made domestic, mild and tractable, provided ... the method that is proper and natural to men is used; that is, love and gentleness and kindness.
No 'revisionist' historian of recent decades has excoriated the Spanish Conquest more thoroughly than Bartolomé de Las Casas, a contemporary of Columbus and the first priest to be ordained in the Americas: 'The reason the Christians have murdered on such
'The pattern established at the outset has remained to this day, and the Spaniards still do nothing save tear the natives to shreds, murder them and inflict upon them untold misery, suffering and distress, tormenting, harrying and persecuting them mercilessly.' According to Las Casas, atrocities continued unabated in the Americas, even half a century after the discovery.
The main goal of divine Providence in [allowing] the discovery of these tribes and lands ... is ... the conversion and well-being of souls, and to this goal everything temporal must necessarily be subordinated and directed.
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