OPPapers.com

Catholic Churchin The New World

During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church played an all-encompassing role
in the lives of the people and the government. As the Dark Ages came to a close,
the ideas of the Renaissance started to take hold, and the church's power gradually
began to diminish. The monarchies of Europe also began to grow, replacing the church's
power. Monarchies, at the close of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the
Renaissance, did not so much seek the guidance of the church as much as it sought
their approval. However, the Church during the Age of Discovery was still a major
influence. The discovery of the New World and its previously unknown inhabitants
presented new problems to the Catholic Church in the late 14th and early 15th
century. The Spanish colonization of the New World introduced Christian ideals to the local inhabitants.
The church established contact with the New World, and made it a goal to
enforce Catholic doctrine among the native population. The Catholic
Church and the Spanish monarch, however, looked upon the native population in the
New World as souls to be saved. They did not consider or treat the Indians as
equals. The introduction of Christianity in the New World, and the treatment of the
native population by the missionaries and Christian conquerors were detrimental to the
New World. Accounts of the conversions have been recorded through men such as Cortez and Las Casas. One of the reasons for this was the alliance of the
Catholic Church with the Spanish monarchy. The Indians' status was completely
disregarded, the Christian conquers and missionaries, who wanted to convert them,
subjected them to violence and reduced them to a laboring population. The Indians, however, did not always respond in a negative way to the work of the church.

The Catholic Church arrived in the New World immediately after Christopher
Columbus laid claim to it for Spain. After Columbus' discovery of the new lands he
wrote a...