What were the intentions and the effects of the Catholic missionary movement in the New World?.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary. Several positions were argued with respect to missionary work overseas to convert native populations to Catholicism. One perspective was that new recruits were needed to replace those souls lost to Protestantism. Another was that missionary work fit within the scope of the internal reforms advocated by the church, seeing it as a duty to return to the proselytizing duties of early Christianity; a position strongly advocated by the Jesuits. Some thought it was a pragmatic approach to the management of newly conquered imperial territories for the states of Spain, particularly, because the imposition of both church and state in the New World would provide a twofold approach to management of the native populations and resources. Others argued that the marginalization of other people on the basis of their lack of Christianization made them fair game for exploitation, and they proposed that if indigenous people would not convert and learn Spanish, they deserved the consequences. All agreed that conversion should be in the hands of Europeans, and native ministries were not established until well into the nineteenth century. Feeding into this marginalization was a cultural divide that emphasized three main points: a complete lack of understanding of indigenous culture, a sense of paternalism and the need to protect the native population from themselves, and a racist sense of superiority on the part of Europeans.