SWEDISH MISSIOLOGICAL THEMES SVENSK MISSIONSTIDSKRIFT

490 Tormod Engelsviken
By this agreement the Pope had underlined the Christian perspective on
the great discoveries and placed an obligation on the Christian powers to
send and support missionaries and later to establish bishoprics. It was fatal
that the political authorities of Spain and Portugal now with good religious
consciousness could carry out their brutal suppression of the indigenous
population and complete their project of conquest and plunder. The Spanish
conquerors, conquistadores, were accompanied and supported by priests
or missionaries, padres, in a way that would have catastrophic consequences
for the peoples of Latin-America and throw long shadows even today on
the relationship between the church and the people.
The image of the mission and the missionaries in Latin America is, however,
not only negative. Not least the Jesuits played an important role after their
arrival in 1549. They remained until 1767 when they were expelled from
Spain and all the colonies due to conflicts between the missionary church
and the Spanish colonial civilisation. Even if the Jesuits followed the method
of tabula rasa, it did not prevent them from using the cultural expressions
of the indigenous peoples. The so-called reducciones were often their main
project, and these communities included schools, agriculture, cultural events,
and religious life. Even here we notice a combination of spirituality,
community and mission. 18 Frequently the missionaries entered into
confrontations with the established hierarchy that was more or less
dependent on the political authorities. This conflict is illustrated in a dramatic
way in the movie The Mission that depicts the relationship of church and
mission to the Indians in southern Brazil.
Even before the Jesuits arrived in Latin America, the priest Bartholomeus
de las Casas, who had come to the new world in 1502, “experienced a
conversion that led him to the conviction that “everything done to the Indians
thus far was wrong and tyrannical”“. 19 He dedicated the next fifty years of
his life until his death in 1566 to serve their cause and fight against those
who oppressed and exploited them.
The Jesuits also travelled eastwards. The famous Catholic missionaries in
India, Japan and China: Roberto de Nobili, Francis Xavier and Mateo Ricci,
in the sixteenth and seventeenth century were all Jesuits. We cannot describe
their impressive missionary work here, but just state that with their policy
18 Ekström 2000:508-509
19 Neill 1973:141-142