To Missionize is to Genocide by Definition
The legal and spiritual framework for this genocide was established centuries before. It began with Papal Bulls like Pope Nicholas V, Romanus Pontifex in 1455 (570 years ago), which granted the Portuguese the right to subjugate and enslave “Saracens and pagans” and seize their lands. This doctrine was cemented in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI’s Inter Caetera, which divided the non-Christian world between Spain and Portugal and called for the “subjugation” of native peoples to bring them to the Catholic faith. This formed the core of the “Doctrine of Discovery,” the pernicious legal principle that any land not inhabited by Christians was terra nullius nobody’s land and therefore free for the taking, regardless of the actual presence of indigenous nations who had lived there for millennia. Below are a few of these doctrines.
