The Inane Asylum

Would you care to cite any evidence that the Catholic Church engaged in forced conversions or had anything whatsoever to do with any alleged “genocide” in Latin America? This baseless claim is typically based on things such as the following:

http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/analysis/details.php?content=2004-02-26

Insofar as the above link concerns the Church, it has the following:

“There was also a ’subtle kind of cultural genocide’ committed by the Spanish missions which abounded in Mexico, California, Louisiana and elsewhere. Lemkin notes that ‘while most of the Indians may not have been converted by actual force, it may well be assumed that they had little idea of either Christianity or the life and burdens in store for them after baptism’. Once they yielded to the admonitions of the fathers, their fate was sealed, they could no longer escape from the reach of the church, or the mission. The missionaries, for example in a church in San Francisco, gave mass in Latin and Spanish, and made no effort to learn the native tongue.”

Celebrating Mass in Latin and Spanish but not the Indians’ native tongue is “genocide”??? And this is from a far left source and, as such, is I assume the most inculpating evidence that exists against the Church. The brutality of the pre-Christian Indian cultures was, everyone agrees, horrifying — human sacrifices, brutal slavery, mass killings, etc. No wonder the Indians converted so readily when they were told of Christ. Pope Benedict was right.

Where a better case that a serious crime was committed against the native Indians is precisely where the Catholic Church did not predominate: North America. Ever wonder why still today one sees native Americans all over Latin America but not North America? It is because the Americans either killed the Indians or shunted them off to reservations. In Latin America, by contrast, the Church demanded humane treatment of the Indians. Her demand was not always honored but its influence is seen in the continued presence of indigenous peoples.

haha don't get my site shut down mayne :)