WITH A LITTLE IMAGINATION

This can be endlessly adapted. Ferguson Missouri springs to mind as the victim is demonized while the shooter and the police department is excused.

This litany was created for a funeral mass for missionary priests and Bororo Indians murdered in 1976 in the village of Meruri by landholders invading Indian lands in the state of Mato Grasso in Brazil. And between the ranchers and the timber companies the killing continues.

For the sins of the old and new colonization that for centuries has been crushing the native peoples of our America, we ask forgiveness.

Forgive us Lord, forgive us.
For the sins of the church itself, so often an instrument of colonialism, old and new…

Forgive us Lord, forgive us.

For the pride and ignorance with which we show contempt for the cultures of native peoples, in the name of a civilization hypocritically called Christian.

Forgive us Lord, forgive us.

For the plundering of the Indian lands and the destruction of the natural environment in which they live, plundering done for the benefit of those with large landholdings, the interests of large national and multinational corporations, or by insensitive tourism…



Forgive us Lord, forgive us.



For the inhuman violence with which we seek to transform indigenous communities into new victims of our civilization of profit and consumption, under the pretext of an illusory integration…



Forgive us Lord, forgive us.



For an inability to discover the sown Word, the roots of the roots of the gospel in the simple and community oriented life of indigenous peoples…



Forgive us Lord, forgive us.

For the lack of solidarity in national consciousness; for the lack of honesty or effectiveness on the part of responsible authorities; for the church’s omissions…

Forgive us Lord, forgive us.

Because we have so often sought to isolate the problem of native people from the overall problem of all outcasts in our country, urban and rural…

Forgive us Lord, forgive us.

For our lack of hope in this new world we must build, where we will al be free and family spirited peoples, for we are your people…

Forgive us Lord, forgive us.

From In Pursuit of the Kingdom Bishop Pedro Casaldaliga.

Now substitute say, African American or Latino for the native peoples. And remember how many waste dumps have been located on native American reservations or near poor or African American neighborhoods. This litany can be endlessly rewritten.