Argentine bishops’ pastoral team rebukes president on country’s origins June 15, 2021By David Agren Catholic News Service Filed Under: Feature, News, World News MEXICO CITY (CNS) — The Argentine bishops’ pastoral team for aboriginal peoples rebuked comments from the country’s president that perpetuated the viewpoint that the population predominantly arrived “on ships” from Europe. President Alberto Fernández, appearing June 9 with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, repeated the line of an old song — which he erroneously attributed to Mexican writer Octavio Paz — “Mexicans came from the Indians, Brazilians from the jungle and we Argentines on ships … from Europe.” The comments provoked strong reactions throughout Latin America, where many people’s ancestry are from Indigenous, European or African roots — and often a mix of these ethnicities. It also revealed opinions on how Argentines often see themselves as the product of mass immigration from Europe — especially Italy and including Pope Francis’ family — in the early 1900s. In a statement June 10, the bishops’ National Aboriginal Pastoral Team, said, “The imaginary White European as the only model in the Americas provokes a wound which continues being open. And the reiteration of this ethnocentric model reproduces the mythical idea of a hegemonic Argentina. The reality of an ancestral Argentina, which is Indigenous and multicultural, emerges from the same history.” For his part, Fernández offered apologies for his remarks, which he said were not meant to offend. But he also offered a further explanation. “In the first half of the 20th century, we received more than 5 million immigrants, who lived together with our original peoples,” he tweeted June 10. “Our diversity is a point of pride.” He wasn’t the first Argentine president to speak of the country’s population coming across the ocean on ships, according to the National Aboriginal Pastoral Team. “The unfortunate phrase makes invisible the Original Communities’ years of struggle for respect of their identity and the right to their territories, which in recent years have been gaining worldwide recognition,” the team’s statement said. The Indigenous population of Argentina numbers 955,032 in 35 ethnic groups, according to the most recent census — about 2.1% of the country’s population of 45.1 million. Also see Head of bishops’ anti-racism committee praises investigations into racist histories Thousands flock to Missouri for ‘electrifying’ visit to former Baltimore nun’s apparently incorrupt body Nun’s incorruptible remains highlight rich heritage of Black Catholics in U.S., say experts A time for reckoning: Archdiocese of Baltimore forms commission to investigate church connection to slavery Despite new EPA rule to reduce toxic pollution, Catholic activist says fight to protect communities far from over Finances bottleneck potential canonization of dozens of American saints and martyrs Copyright © 2021 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Print
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