And it's being developed at a rate of 1,500 acres a day - destroying habitats and ecosystems, while lining the pockets of overwhelmingly white-owned corporations. That land has been stolen and passed down for generations, contributing to a Black-to-white wealth gap of 1:16. The doctrine's logic of white Christian superiority - over all creation - was cemented into a modern economy that hinges on the extraction of people and the Earth, for the profit of a few. As Diné elder Pat McCabe said during the webinar April 5, the doctrine "wasn't just a moral or ethical imposition it was the beginning of the destruction of this Mother Earth in its entirety." It paved the way for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the genocide of Indigenous peoples, and the colonization of 84% of the land on Earth by European nations. In a moment when many dioceses and other Catholic institutions are divesting of property and downsizing, Catholic decision-makers can model a true ethic of repudiation through acts of land return, rematriation and land reparations. The Catholic Church is the largest private landowner in the world. The Vatican's recent repudiation of the doctrine is a significant step in healing and reconciliation, but it will only be truly powerful if it changes our beliefs - and actions - about "property." That language is lifted from the Doctrine of Discovery, a set of 15th-century papal decrees that authorized European nations to conquer non-Christian lands and people. Regarded as the foundational case in American property law, it ruled that Indigenous people cannot hold title to land, citing that "discovery is the foundation of title in European nations, and this overlooks all proprietary rights in the natives."
In her first property law class, Tela was introduced to the 1823 Supreme Court case Johnson v.
Everytime we enter into a real estate transaction, there's theft and enslavement of Indigenous people implicit in that, and in the whole foundation of American property law," she said. "It's just so ingrained in our everyday life. When Tela Troge, a member of the Shinnecock nation, responded during a webinar April 5 to the Catholic Church's recent repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, she recalled learning about the doctrine as a new law student in 2010.
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