Mexico President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador has formally composed a letter to the Vatican leader Pope Francis to request a conciliatory sentiment for the Catholic church’s role in the abuse of indigenous individuals in the Spanish triumph 500 years ago.
The solicitation was made in a two-page letter that also asked the Vatican to temporarily return several old indigenous original copies held in its library, ahead of next year’s 500-year commemoration of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
The letter was composed on the second of October, 2020 but was posted on President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Twitter page on Saturday third October. Coincidentally, this was the very day authorities of Mexico City chose to eliminate a sculpture of Christopher Columbus that nonconformists had taken steps to knock down.
The letter was conveyed to the Pope by the President’s better half, Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, who met with him at the Vatican following a meeting she had with Italian president, Sergio Mattarella.
Aztec composition under the microscope, López Obrador said the Spanish crown, Spain’s government and the Vatican should all apologize to local people for the “most unpardonable abominations” submitted after Spanish conquistadors showed up in Mexico in 1521.
As per the composition:
“They deserve not just that generous attitude on our part but also a sincere commitment that never again will disrespectful acts be committed against their beliefs and cultures.”
The Catholic church assumed a key function as Spain colonized the Americas and spread its domain, setting up missions to change over indigenous individuals to Christianity.
López Obrador made a comparable request a year ago in a letter to Spain’s King Felipe and the Pope, but the Spanish government dismissed the request.
The pope apologized in 2015 to Bolivia over the congregation’s part in abuse in Latin America during the Spanish colonial period.
In the recent letter to the Vatican, the Mexican President López Obrador mentioned the arrival of three codices, including the Codex Borgia, a particularly brilliant screen-overlay book spread across many pages that portrays divine beings and customs from old central Mexico.
It is one of the best-preserved examples of pre-conquest Aztec-style writing that exists, after Catholic authorities in colonial-era Mexico dismissed such codices as the work of the devil and ordered hundreds or even thousands of them burned in the decades following the 1521 conquest.
President López Obrador demands the Vatican return the Codex Borgia, two other antiquated codices, just as its guides of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan for a one-year credit in 2021. President Obrador is arranging a progression of events to recognize the commemoration one year from now.
The Vatican has not yet reacted to the request, yet its museums and archives have in the past loaned out different manuscripts and masterpieces after comparable requests from different countries.
Meanwhile, in Mexico City, authorities have pulled down a statue of Christopher Columbus two days before dissenters intended to wreck it during the event celebrating the Italian pilot’s appearance in the Americas.
The culture ministry said the statue was removed from Reforma Avenue on the request of city authorities, saying it was brought down for restoration.
As per officials, the statue could be returned after the restoration work is completed.
