Mexico City, Mexico, Apr 4, 2019 / 13:10 pm
Fr. Hugo Valdemar, the canon penitentiary of the Archdiocese of Mexico, said Monday that through Spanish missionaries we have received from Spain "the greatest thing we Mexicans have, the true faith."
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote last month to Pope Francis and the King of Spain, Felipe VI, asking for an apology for the abuses committed during conquest of Mexico by Spanish Catholics in the 16th century.
Spain dismissed López Obrador's request, while the Vatican recalled that Pope Francis, as well as his predecessors, have asked forgiveness for the "many and grave sins" committed during the conquest of the Americas.
In his April 1 column at the Mexican publication Contra Réplica, Fr. Valdemar noted that "we cannot fall into an historical Manecheism without doing ourselves profound harm: that the good ones were the original peoples, almost in the state of original grace, and the bad ones were the Spanish conquistadors who came to destroy great cultures."