Pope Francis appeared on Wednesday to back Native Americans seeking to halt part of the Dakota Access Pipeline, saying indigenous cultures have a right to defend "their ancestral relationship to the earth".
The Latin American pope, who has often strongly defended indigenous rights since his election in 2013, made his comments on protection of native lands to representative of tribes attending the Indigenous Peoples Forum in Rome.
While he did not name the pipeline, he used strong and clear language applicable to the conflict, saying development had to be reconciled with "the protection of the particular characteristics of indigenous peoples and their territories".
Francis spoke two days after a U.S. federal judge denied a request by tribes to halt construction of the final link of the project that sparked months of protests by activists aimed at stopping the 1,170-mile line.
Speaking in Spanish, Francis said the need to protect native territories was "especially clear when planning economic activities which may interfere with indigenous cultures and their ancestral relationship to the earth".
The Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes have argued the project would prevent them from practicing religious ceremonies at a lake they say is surrounded by sacred ground.
"In this regard, the right to prior and informed consent (of native peoples) should always prevail," the pope said, citing the 1997 U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
To what extent the way of life of indigenous people should be protected is outside of the scope of Catholic Church, which ought to focus on Christ's sacredness rather than on the "sacred ground" claimed by the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes. If Bergolio wants to argue the the 1997 U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as it applies to the two Sioux tribes, then he ought to file a lawsuit in a United States district court (assuming he can overcome the standing issue), and he should also assist with the one that was filed on July 27, 2016, by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the United States Army Corps of Engineers. [2]
How Bergolio manages to find time to meddle in such superfluousness is astounding, as if he has nothing else better to do, while leaving matters that pertain to the impending division and the continuing viability of the Vatican on the back burner. Perhaps the indigeneous tribes were a welcomed secular distraction that distanced himself temporarily from his immediate reality. However, no distraction, perhaps other than an earthquake that reduces the Vatican to rubble, will overcome the fact that he has been trapped by his own Amoris Laetitia, which seems to say that "'in some cases the divorced and civilly remarried can be admitted to receive the Eucharist.'" [3] If there is any remaining doubt on this issue, the February 14, 2017, Vatican Press publication of "a short book by Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio," [4] "arguing that Amoris Laetitia allows for divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the Eucharist in some cases," [5] had put it to rest, despite earlier statements by Cardinal Gerhard Müller to the contrary. [6] Cardinal Müller is the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Administering the Eucharist to those who are divorced at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City is far removed from building a crude oil pipeline in North Dakota in the United States, figuratively and literally (the two places are separated by approximately 5,039 mi [7] or 8,109 km), but problems inside the Holy See are only steps away from the church. A short CatholicCulture.org comment dated February 14, 2017, entitled Unrest at the Vatican; reassurances backfire, re-published by LIFESITE on February 15, 2017, gives readers a sense of what is happening on Bergolio's side of the Dakota Pipeline [8].
[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-north-dakota-pipeline-pope-idUSKBN15U1VA
[2] http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/3154%201%20Complaint.pdf Readers wishing to keep up with the latest developments on the case, as of February 14, 2017, can read about the denial of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe's request for a temporary restraining order here:
https://turtletalk.wordpress.com/2017/02/14/crsts-request-for-a-temporary-restraining-order-against-dapl-is-denied/
[3] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2016/04/does-amoris-laetitia-encourage-communion-of-divorced-and-re-married.html
[4] http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=30752
[5] Ibid.
[6] http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/02/01/cardinal-muller-communion-for-the-remarried-is-against-gods-law/
[7] https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=North+Dakota+to+Vatican+distanc+e
[8] https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/unrest-at-the-vatican-reassurances-backfire;
http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/the-city-gates.cfm?id=1411;
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