Disciples had been sent on a healing mission by Jesus. After returning they “told him all they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile.’ But people were coming in great numbers.” When he “saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with compassion for the people, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.”
Bartolome de Las Casas had been sent on a mission by the Roman Catholic Church. It was not a healing mission but instead a violent one. He and church officials claimed it was done for Christ but it was done for empire. They and other militant imperialists, were claiming the ‘New World’ for themselves. They were claiming all its inhabitants as well, “Dearest sons in Christ, illustrious Kings, professing Christ’s faith, who, for the glory of the Eternal King, eagerly defend the faith itself and with powerful arm fight its enemies… we grant to you full and free power, through the Apostolic authority by this edict, to invade, conquer, fight, subjugate the… pagans, and other infidels and other enemies of Christ… and to lead their persons in perpetual servitude.” (Pope Nicholas V, Vatican: Dum Diversas 1452) Each militant imperialist, along with the official Roman Catholic Church, felt justified in practicing every possible violence to get and maintain their ownership of people as slaves in perpetual servitude to them. De Las Casas was one such slave owner. Then, one day, “his heart was moved with compassion for the people.” De Las Casas’ conversion is linked to his eyewitness of Spain’s military invasion of Cuba in 1513, “a Spaniard… suddenly drew his sword. Then the whole hundred drew theirs and began to rip open the bellies and, to cut and kill those —men, women, children, and old folk… (then to) the large house nearby… in the same way, with cuts and stabs, began to kill as many as they found there, so that a stream of blood was running.” “In truth, many more cruel and without number horrors were perpetrated throughout these Indies.” Blessed as righteous by their Pope, the Spanish soldiers treated the people of the Indies as of “less worth than dung on the street.” While he may have wanted to ‘come away to a deserted place and rest awhile,’ it was then that De Las Casas embarked upon his healing mission. He embraced the native people as equal human beings. He was thus rejected by the wealth class and their officials, denounced for his ideas on human dignity and equality, and received many death threats. De Las Casas, whose feast day is celebrated today, July 18, spent his remaining years ‘teaching people many things.’ For example, to Spanish soldiers of fortune, in church robes and in soldier garb, he taught the truth of their blasphemy, “In order to gild a very cruel and harsh tyranny… (they) deliver up the innocent in order to extract from their blood the wealth which these men regard as their god.” Who will speak the truth in our day to U.S. soldiers of fortune, in church robes and soldier garb? ‘In order to gild a very cruel and harsh tyranny… (they) still deliver up the innocent in Latin America in order to extract from their blood the wealth these militarists regard as their god’ – waging over 50 regime change wars since 1898 for sugar, fruit, minerals, and oil. They have done the same to innocents across the Middle East for oil and its wealth which they ‘regard as their god.’ Like the colonizing Spaniards, they claim to do so for Christ, “We need to be warriors for Christ.” (Gen. Boykin) De Las Casas’ words remain true, “The reader may ask… whether these poor people would not fare far better if they were entrusted to the devils in Hell than they do at the hands of the devils of the New World who masquerade as Christians.”
Upon his departure, de Las Casas said, “I leave in the Indies Jesus Christ, our God, scourged and afflicted and beaten and crucified not once, but thousands of times.” It is less any native who needs to be ‘saved’ from paganism or socialism or communism, or anything else, than it is soldiers who need to be salved – healed, from Militarism. Soldiers are a ‘vast crowd and Jesus’ heart is moved with compassion for them. For they are like sheep without a shepherd.’
Prayer: Spirit, guide us on a healing mission in this world.
Question: What is the compassion and healing I extend to soldiers of fortune, in church robes and soldier garb?
July 18, 2021 Gospel Mark 6:30-34 Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time