The Religious Connection to "Columbus Day." [View all]

It is, indeed a religious holiday. A "Christian" holiday. Christopher Columbus (Cristobal Colon) represents all of the "explorers" who came to the shores of the Western Hemisphere. All had a religious connection to bring to these "new" lands.

Columbus, like many of the "explorers" of his day, brought Roman Catholic priests and soldiers with them. As they encountered indigenous peoples and cultures, they gave them Christianity. If their gift was not accepted, or even when it was, they also gave them European diseases, rape, slavery and death. All in the name of Jesus Christ.

That happened centuries ago, and was very, very successful. In many places, no trace whatever remains of the genetic lines of those indigenous peoples or their cultures. The genocide was complete in many areas.

Wherever the Europeans landed, death and misery spread out inexorably from their landing places. So did Christianity. Along the Central Coast of California, the Chumash culture was enslaved, converted, and died. That, thanks to Fr. Junipero Serra and the soldiers he brought with him. The Roman Catholic Church brought Jesus to the the Chumash, and then killed them all off, one way or another.

There is no separation between those events and the religious beliefs of those European invaders. None. The two are inextricably linked.

We are beginning to recognize that. Minnesota changed "Columbus Day" to "Indigenous Peoples Day." It should be a day of mourning and penance, it seems to me.

It is not a happy day. It has never been a happy day. Thanks to religion, it is a day commemorating genocide.