Notre Dame, Indiana
Christopher Columbus murals to be covered up
Notre Dame university has decided to cover up its 19th-century murals depicting the arrival of Christopher Columbus because they are seen as demeaning to Native Americans. The murals “reflect the attitudes of the time”, said university president Fr John Jenkins, but in recent years many have come to see them as “at best blind to the consequences of Columbus’s voyage for the indigenous peoples who inhabited this ‘new’ world and at worst demeaning toward them”. They were “not intended to slight indigenous peoples, but to encourage another marginalised group,” Catholic immigrants, he said. High-res images of the murals will be displayed elsewhere in the university. (See page 12.)
