On Thursday, the Vatican officially renounced the “Doctrine of Discovery,” the 15th-century decrees that legitimized forcibly displacing Native Americans and seizing their land.

The Vatican's statement said that the Doctrine “did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples," and that it was right to “recognize these errors" and ask for forgiveness from Indigenous communities for centuries of removal and forced assimilation, which was sanctioned largely in the name of Christianity.

“In no uncertain terms, the church’s magisterium upholds the respect due to every human being," the statement reads. "The Catholic Church therefore repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political ‘doctrine of discovery.’”

While the statement is a landmark acknowledgment from the Vatican recognizing its role in colonial-era atrocities, Indigenous leaders believes it still distances the Catholic Church by describing the decrees as “manipulated” to be used for political motives that “justify immoral acts against Indigenous peoples that were carried out, at times, without opposition from ecclesial authorities.”

Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, prefect of the Vatican’s culture office, explained that the announcement wasn't an attempt to shield the church from historic accountability, but to honor the relationships they've forged with Indigenous communities.

“This Note is part of what we might call the architecture of reconciliation and also the product of the art of reconciliation, the process whereby people commit to listening to each other, to speaking to each other and to growth in mutual understanding," he said via The Associated Press.

Native communities still welcomed the announcement, and had been formally advocating for the Vatican to denounce the decrees for decades. When Pope Francis visited Canada in 2022 to formally apologize for abuses committed in residential schools, he was met with protesters calling for him to reverse the Doctrine.

Phil Fontaine, a former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations in Canada, called the Vatican's statement "wonderful," adding that "now the ball is in the court of governments, the United States and in Canada, but particularly in the United States where the doctrine is embedded in the law."