Is This Idolatry

[juantoo3]

Our family had a missionary friend who worked with the Karamajong in Uganda. They ran a school, mission hospital out on the plains. They did nothing to inculcate contemporary western values compared to Idi Amin, who purchased clothing wholesale, by the container load, and insisted the country people wear western clothing, and set about destroying the country's cultural heritage. The missions were thrown out when they complained. Fr Franco actually performed a Christian marriage of a local chief to all his wives, informing the Mother House after the fact, and was not censured for it. Fr Sembianté, another family friend, spent his life caring for the sick in a leper colony ... both men seemed to think and act as if the person was more important than their clothes.

This goes along with many stories I've heard over the years as well. But each needs to be considered on a case by case basis as there is no blanket story to cover all missionary outreaches.

Look at the "Christian Schools" (many of them Catholic) who indoctrinated Native Americans by the generational boatloads, doing everything humanly possible to include torture and solitary confinement (on a child!) to eradicate Tribal Culture. These were not isolated incidents, this went on with the full knowledge and endorsement of the government over several decades. So much for teaching "good Christian" values, eh?

 

[juantoo3]

That's probably a western view of the Jewish saying?

What, about being a defenseless doormat, allowing someone to take advantage of you simply because they know you've been hamstrung by some mistranslated teaching? Absolutely.

 

[RJM]

I wasn't being sarcastic...I'm actually not the least bit surprised. Again, it goes back to cultural arrogance.

Oh no, I didn't think you were ...

 

[RJM]

... Look at the "Christian Schools" (many of them Catholic) who indoctrinated Native Americans by the generational boatloads, doing everything humanly possible to include torture and solitary confinement (on a child!) to eradicate Tribal Culture. These were not isolated incidents, this went on with the full knowledge and endorsement of the government over several decades. So much for teaching "good Christian" values, eh?

But can you back this up? Some proof should be required?

Not the government consent part. There is no problem with believing that. The shocking genocide against the Native Americans is documented in the heartbreaking 'Bury my Heart are Wounded Knee.' By Dee Brown.

 

[juantoo3]

But can you back this up? Some proof should be required?

Sure, how about "The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Fistfight in Heaven" by Sherman Alexie (Coeur d'Alene Indian), part of which was made into the movie "Smoke Signals."

Here, from NPR, a well trusted liberal media site: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16516865

Here's a brief from Wiki:

The government paid religious orders to provide basic education to Native American children on reservations. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) founded additional boarding schools based on the assimilation model of the off-reservation Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

Children were typically immersed in European-American culture through forced changes that removed indigenous cultural signifiers. These methods included being forced to have European-American style haircuts, being forbidden to speak their Indigenous languages, and having their real names replaced by European names to both "civilize" and "Christianize" them. The experience of the schools was usually harsh and often deadly, especially for the younger children who were forcibly separated from their families. The children were forced to abandon their Native American identities and cultures.[2] Investigations of the later twentieth century have revealed many documented[3] cases of sexual, manual, physical and mental abuse occurring mostly in church-run[4] schools.

ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools

These issues are referenced in greater and lesser detail in the book/film "The Education of Little Tree" and the film "ThunderHeart" (itself a compilation of multiple political and social issues addressing specifically the Lakota during the 1970s...the second Wounded Knee)

Rather than overwhelm, I think these should suffice to start, the Wiki in particular is a bountiful resource that points in many more directions for further consideration.

 

[RJM]

Sure, how about "The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Fistfight in Heaven" by Sherman Alexie (Coeur d'Alene Indian), part of which was made into the movie "Smoke Signals."

Here, from NPR, a well trusted liberal media site: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16516865

Here's a brief from Wiki:


ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools

These issues are referenced in greater and lesser detail in the book/film "The Education of Little Tree" and the film "ThunderHeart" (itself a compilation of multiple political and social issues addressing specifically the Lakota during the 1970s...the second Wounded Knee)

Rather than overwhelm, I think these should suffice to start, the Wiki in particular is a bountiful resource that points in many more directions for further consideration.

Thank you. It's very sad and bad. I'm wondering if this was another purely American phenomenon.

The obviously infamous Carlisle Indudtrial School shown on the header pic of the wiki entry does not appear to have had any church involvement?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools

So I wonder what percentage of the bad ones were in fact church run? It was all a very bad time for Native Americans.

It would be a pity if all the good work done by missionaries was forgotten because of this sort of thing.

Catholic Native American Schools today:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...do-good/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d8cb61b55026

 

[RJM]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praying_town

Comparison to Jesuits in CanadaEdit
The idea of a full conversion was a sharp contrast to the Christianization movements by the Jesuits in Canada, who were looking to add Christianity to the Natives' existing beliefs as opposed to replacing them.[5] While some Natives were quick to take on the conversionsome did not like the idea of a full conversion. The process was not always an easy one and there were many reasons ...

Going off topic, and I know not directly related to the Native American boarding schools. But trying to demonstrate that in spite of bad eggs who obviously get the headlines the Catholic Church (16% of the world population) mostly just quietly goes about its business and its missionaries have never shown much interest in being 'bought out' or usurped by governments anywhere.

 

[Thomas]

This goes along with many stories I've heard over the years as well. But each needs to be considered on a case by case basis ...

Oh, quite.

While Franco had a fund of stories, my Aunt was a nun in a convent that ran a home for 'fallen women' — that is a history we'd probably not like looking into, especially when I remember the opulence shown when we visited my aunt when I was a kid. This wasn't in some far-away colony, this was in the South of England.

 

[Bhaktajan II]

Are we forgetting the flip side of the coin?

First let me remind the argument that between 1492 and the time of American conquests of the west 350 years passed by [The USA is 242 years old...142 years old at the time of "Native American boarding schools" ---which was borne of Charity and compassion. Would it have been better to pass out teepees? And btw way, US Indian reservation lands were inhabited by many Indians for years to come.

Now, back to the flip side of the coin:

The Visigoths (/ˈvɪzɪɡɒθs/; Latin: Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi; Italian: Visigoti) were the western branches of the nomadic tribes of Germanic peoples referred to collectively as the Goths.[2] These tribes flourished and spread throughout the late Roman Empire inLate Antiquity, or what is known as the Migration Period. The Visigoths emerged from earlier Gothic groups (possibly the Thervingi) who had invaded the Roman Empire beginning in 376 and had defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378.[3] Relations between the Romans and the Visigoths were variable, alternately warring with one another and making treaties when convenient.[2] The Visigoths invaded Italy under Alaric I and sacked Rome in 410. After the Visigoths sacked Rome, they began settling down, first in southern Gaul and eventually in Spain and Portugal, where they founded the Visigothic Kingdom and maintained a presence from the 5th to the 8th centuries AD.[4]

The Visigoths first settled in southern Gaul as foederati to the Romans – a relationship established in 418. However, they soon fell out with their Roman hosts (for reasons that are now obscure) and established their own kingdom with its capital at Toulouse. They next extended their authority into Hispania at the expense of the Suebi and Vandals. ---Wiki.

Vandals, Huns, Hannibal, Turks, Tartars, Mongols, Moguls ... followed by anyone claiming to be Muslim, ... followed by anyone claiming to be conquistador...followed by anyone claiming to be a seafaring Empire.

FYI:
The Visigothic Code The code abolished the old tradition of having different laws for Romans (leges romanae) and Visigoths (leges barbarorum), and under which all the subjects of the Visigothic kingdom would stop being romani and gothi instead becoming hispani. In this way, all subjects of the kingdom were gathered under the same jurisdiction, eliminating social and legal differences, and allowing greater assimilation of the populations.[1] As such, the Code marks the transition from the Roman law to Germanic law and is one of the best surviving examples ofleges barbarorum. It combines elements of the Roman law, Catholic law and Germanic tribal customary law.