The Faith of Columbus the Evangelizer ✠ Brushed Aluminum Print

Celebrating the Evangelization of the Americas

Whatever his faults or mistakes, Columbus tried to be a Christ-bearer to the peoples in lands lying to the west of Spain. And whatever the intervening vicissitudes, one must admit that his mission was not without success. Today there are more Christians in the Western Hemisphere than in any continent in the rest of the world; more Catholics in Latin America than in any other continent, more Protestants in North America than in any other continent, more Protestants in the United States than in any other country.

The celebration of the evangelization of the Western Hemisphere was the focus of the observance of the Quincentenary by Pope John Paul II. On October 12, 1984 in Santo Domingo he addressed an audience of thousands, including about 100 Latin American Bishops, in the Olympic Stadium. He then recalled that “On the first apostolic journey of my pontificate I said I wished to pass through Santo Domingo, ‘following the route which the first evangelizers traced out at the time of the discovery of the continent.” (Arrival Speech in Santo Domingo, Jan. 25, 1979),.and that at Zaragoza in Spain he had said that the Church could not fail to share in the fifth centenary of the discovery and evangelization of America (November 6, 1982).(19)

He joined with Leo XIII, pope at the time of the 400th anniversary, in recognizing the providential character of Columbus’s exploit, denying neither “the interdependence which occurred between the cross and the sword during the stage of the first missionary penetration” nor “that the expansion of Iberian Christianity brought the new peoples the gift which derived from- the origins and gestation of Europe–the Christian faith,with its power of humanity and salvation, dignity and fraternity, justice and love for the New world.”

He also recalled that “in spite of the excessive closeness or confusion between the lay and religious spheres, which was a mark of that age, there was no identification or subjection, and the church’s voice was raised from the first moment against sin.” As witness Las Casas and many others.

And to the bishops of each nation he presented a V Centenary Cross. As the inscription on it proclaims, the V Centenary Cross commemorates the fifth centenary of the evangelization of the New World. It was designed to be similar to the cross planted about 1514 in Santo Domingo on the site where the first cathedral in the Americas would be erected.

On October 12, 1992, on the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s landing, in Santo Domingo again he spoke to the Fourth General Assembly of the Latin American Bishops, focusing on “the new evangelization,” and as part of that the need to address “the problems relating to justice and solidarity among all the nations of America”. Also in observance of that anniversary in Santo Domingo the huge Columbus Lighthouse, designed in the shape of a cross lying on its back was dedicated.

The Quincentenary of the evangelization of Americas was adopted as the theme for the anniversary celebration by the bishops of the United States. To aid in that the Knights of Columbus had a number of replicas of the V Centenary Cross hand-made to be presented to and used in each diocese in the Americas as a focus for prayer services as part of the Quincentenary year’s celebrations.

Earlier this year, as the new millennium got underway, a new Knights of Columbus museum building at their headquarters in New Haven was opened. In its courtyard there is a new statue for the new millennium: “Columbus the Evangelizer.”

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