“This was the fire that burned within me…,” wrote Christopher Columbus. He wanted the king and queen of Spain to give him a fortune and their backing for a titanic spiritual journey that would lead to the recovery of Jerusalem from its Muslim conquerors and the return of Jesus Christ.*
The explorer said that his whole life had prepared him for this task. He had gained the skills needed to accomplish the 15th Century equivalent of a journey to Mars. He knew astronomy, astrology, geography, arithmetic, and map reading, he pointed out.
Today, we celebrate the success of the Italian explorer in arriving in the Americas on October 12, 1492. New Yorkers first celebrated the occasion with religious ceremonies and other festivities in 1792. However, it was not until 1934 that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a New Yorker, declared Columbus Day a national holiday. Perhaps, most people don’t realize that one of the biggest public parades in the city is in honor of a religious explorer. (Another big parade honors the missionary monk Saint Patrick.)
Columbus’ pitch to the king and queen of Spain was put in spiritual terms. Most crucial, Columbus said, was that contrary to popular opinion, God had ”opened my mind to the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies, and he opened my will to desire to accomplish the project…”
The explorer also pointed out the pragmatic necessities of opening a new frontier as a way out of a desperate fight. At that time the European and Middle Eastern Christians were in an uncertain struggle with an expanding Muslim empire. In 1453 Constantinople, the center of Orthodox Christianity, fell to an invading Muslim army with much loss of life and enslavement. The new rulers changed the name of the city to Istanbul and turned the great cathedral Hagia Sophia into a mosque. The next target of conquest was the rest of Europe.
From the European Christian perspective, the only bright light was the re-conquest of Spain from the Muslims. Columbus proposed to the Spanish sovereigns a daring masterstroke in the battles: send him to China to create an alliance with the Chinese to gain gold, arms, and soldiers to march on Jerusalem. But how were the Europeans going to get to China? At this time, the overland route to China was blocked by the Muslims.
(Although the Europeans didn’t know it, the Chinese government had itself sent out a large exploratory naval force that had reached the Persian Gulf and the east coast of Africa.)
So, Columbus proposed a vast end-run around the Muslim conquerors by finding a new oceanic route. The explorer believed that God had opened his mind to search out the vast unexplored Atlantic Ocean for a new route to China.
In the December 26, 1492 entry in his journal, Columbus hoped that he would obtain gold and spices “in such quantity that the sovereigns…will undertake and prepare to conquer the Holy Sepulcher [i.e., where Jesus was killed, buried and resurrected]; for thus I urged Your Highnesses to spend all the profits of this my enterprise on the conquest of Jerusalem.”
Bartolome de las Casas, his good friend and an eventual great defender of the American Indians against European greed, described Columbus spiritual life and mission: “He observed the fasts of the church most faithfully, confessed and made communion often, read the canonical offices like a churchman or member of a religious order, hated blasphemy and profane swearing, was most devoted to Our Lady and to the… father St. Francis; seemed very grateful to God for benefits received from the divine hand… And he was especially affected and devoted to the idea that God should deem him worthy of aiding somewhat in recovering the Holy Sepulcher.” De las Casas father was one of the crew on Columbus’ ship.
Toward the end of his life, the explorer was still compiling his Book of Prophecies, which may have been preparation for a long narrative poem. In the book, Columbus recast his journey as a mission trip of evangelism. He quoted the prophet Isaiah (51:5) as inspiration for the exploration of the islands (the Americas), “Give ear, you islands, and hearken, you people from afar.”
The coming of Columbus was to be a signal of God’s outreach to all peoples, “And I will set a sign among them…to the islands afar off, to them that have not heard of me and have not seen my glory” (quoting from Isaiah 66:19). Columbus predicted that a great nation and huge land would arise just as the Roman writer Seneca had poetically forecast in his work Medea: “An age will come when the Ocean will break his chains, a huge land will be revealed…”
Columbus still didn’t forget his purpose to liberate Jerusalem from the conquest by the Muslims. The day before Columbus died he ratified his will that set up a memorial fund for the purpose of liberating Jerusalem.
Columbus’ exploration opened the Americas to various types of cultural and religious advancements from Europe. It also brought Europe into contact with cultural advances that were found among native Indian tribes and nations. However, the context of war and competition with the Muslims also meant that Columbus’ exploration brought a troubling war-like attitude into the Americas.
Although the Spanish monarchs tasked explorers like Columbus to “endeavor to win over the inhabitants” and to “treat the Indians very well and lovingly and abstain from doing them any injury,” the treatment of the native peoples was often cruel. In 1516 the priest de las Casas wrote the polemical A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies to counter the bad treatment of the American Indians. He believed that the civilizations of native Americans were superior to his own in many ways.
So on this island of the Americas on Columbus Day, what lessons can we take from Christopher Columbus’ spiritual journey?
First, we might consider how our religious faiths can be a tremendous resource for the city. From the time of Columbus to our time of astronauts, adventure, exploration, and discovery are often based on religious motives. (See our article on religion in outer space.)
Second, we can reflect during Columbus Day that sometimes we have to stand up against our religious heroes’ mistakes while also appreciating their strengths.
Columbus was indeed a brave hero who also promoted bad treatment of the American Indians. His theology and practices sparked a powerful rebuke from Christians like his friend de las Casas. The friar was a remarkable defender of the non-European right to full access to Christian faith and church recognition. He documented the mistreatment of the Indians, as they were called, following the teaching of the Apostle Paul that in Christ, all humans were equally dignified and had access to God. He framed his defense also within the Catholic theological tradition that went back to Thomas Aquinas. (See our story “DOMINICAN AMERICAN FAITH — ROOTS” for more discussion on the influence of Columbus and de las Casas on NYC religion.)
Third, New York City’s history and current life are intricately connected to the creative mixing of spiritual journeys. Over a long time, we have developed a better way to peacefully harness multiple religious beliefs and non-beliefs to the furtherance of exploration, knowledge, and the public good.
For us New Yorkers, religious belief is not a zero-sum game: that if someone else’s beliefs gain ground in the city, then my life will be impoverished and threatened. That fearful perspective was held by most Christians and Muslims in Columbus’ day.
Now, in our city, we can see that multiple and even clashing beliefs create a plus-plus public square in which new ideas, cultural innovation, and knowledge arise out of the mix and competition of perspectives. Each religion becomes stronger and more innovative to the degree that it looks at the new ideas and practices brought by other religions as possible clues to improve one’s own religious community.
Fourth, time is always too short for life’s exploration. One should let one’s heart and mind be “on fire” for doing good and spiritual journeys in directions that we have never traveled.
Columbus Day greeting: have a good journey!
The quotes are taken from Carol Delaney’s path-breaking book Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem (2011) and her writings like “Columbus’ ultimate goal: Jerusalem” in the Journal for Comparative Study of Society and History (2006). Also from Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley, Jr.’s edition of The Diaro of Christopher Columbus’ First Voyage to America 1492-1493 (1989) and Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea (1942). In 2013 the director of the Vatican museum announced the discovery of perhaps the earliest portrayal of American Indians in a painting by someone outside of the Americas. Two American Indians are painted in the fresco “Resurrection of Christ” done between 1492 and 1494 by the Renaissance artist Pinturicchio. The NYC Columbus Day Parade is organized by the Columbus Citizens Foundation.
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