Religious Colonization

The religious colonization of the New World went hand in hand with the political one.a Once an area was conquered, the native population was obliged to become Catholic. As Catholic priest and historian Humberto Bronx explains: “At first they baptized without oral instruction, practically by force. . . . Pagan temples were converted into Christian churches or hermitages; idols were replaced by crosses.” Not surprisingly, such arbitrary “conversion” resulted in a peculiar amalgam of Catholic and traditional worship that has continued down to this day.

After the conquest and “conversions,” obedience to the church and its representatives was strictly enforced, especially in Mexico and Peru, where the Inquisition was established. Some sincere churchmen protested the unchristian methods. Dominican friar Pedro de Córdoba, eyewitness of the colonization of the island of Hispaniola, bemoaned: “With such good, obedient, and meek people, if only preachers entered among them without the force and violence of these wretched Christians, I think that a church as fine as the primitive one could be founded.”

In harmony with the meaning of his first name, Christopher, Columbus did make an attempt to be a “Christbearer” of a kind. After all, the Spanish sovereigns had sent him forth in “the service of God and the expansion of the Catholic faith.” But after teaching some uncomprehending natives to make the sign of the cross and to sing the Ave Maria, he concentrated on more tangible rewards: finding gold and the elusive route to India.

Some Catholics have argued that Columbus should, nevertheless, be made a “saint” because of his pivotal role in extending the boundaries of Christendom. But the mass “conversions” that came in the wake of his discoveries did little to take the authentic Jesus Christ to the people of the New World. Genuine Christianity has always been extended by peaceful means, not by the sword. The use of force to spread the gospel is a gross contradiction of what Jesus taught.​—Compare Matthew 10:14; 26:52.