There have been many instances where great social injustices have been done by "institutionalised" religion. In New Zealand the early European settlement brought unprecedented change to the indigenous Maori people.

Christianity accompanied the European powers, who, started to conquer other countries from the 16th century onwards. In all the countries and continents they invaded, these European powers engaged in a deliberate policy of completely annihilating the existing pre-Christian civilizations. The Inuit, Indian, Aboriginal and Maori cultures were squashed and a Christian culture, biased towards western civilisation was put in its place. This is how North America, Canada, South America, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Ocean islands and a good part of Africa were turned into Christian countries.

MAORI SPIRITUALITY

Prior to the arrival of the first missionaries in 1814 and the establishment of the Roman Catholic Mission by Bishop Pompallier in 1838, Maori religious beliefs governed virtually every aspect of life; from the preparation of food or hunting, from fishing to building a canoe, to birth, marriage or death.

The supreme god of the Maori people was "Io" who taught laws of balance and respect. Then came:

1. Ranginui and Papatūānuku, the Sky Father and Earth Mother.

2. The offspring of Ranginui and Papatūānuku who controlled the principal forces of nature. There were perhaps 70 of these gods, headed by Tāne-mahuta (forest, trees, birds), Tūmatauenga (war), Rongo (peace), Tangaroa (sea and fish), Tāwhirimātea (wind and storm, Haumia-tiketike (sweet potatoes), Ruaumoko (earthquakes).

3. Personifications such as Uen-uku (rainbow), Tunui (meteors), and Rakaiora (lizards)

THE CONVERSION OF MAORI TO CHRISTIANITY

English Missionary, Henry Williams arrived in the Bay of Islands in 1823 and became the leader of the mission there. At that time, not a single Maori had been converted to Christianity. The Maori people, being very spiritual in nature, had their own religion and did not want to become Christians.

As settlers poured into Aotearoa, wars developed over land-grabbing, the influence of the Church with the Maori waned and the fast-growing settler population became her main preoccupation.

Maori saw the greed of the early settlers and their faith as being interwoven, and saw their own displacement and disenfranchising as a being part of the process.

The injustices done at this time and to succeeding generations have had far reaching consequences for Maori and European New Zealanders relationships, and still today, the situation had not been resolved satisfactorily.

THE ONLY ANSWER TO THE CRIMES OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS TO APOSTATISE.

The Raelian Movement (www.rael.org) is initiating a massive campaign urging the Aboriginal and Maori people to apostatise from their catholic religion which has only just publicly recognized its crimes of having forcefully separated children from their families as a deliberate attempt to obliterate their roots and culture. It includes all the native people of Polynesia, particularly Hawaii, and also Africa and North and South America.

RAEL, the founder of the Raelian Movement says: "the only answer worthy of their ancestors for the Aboriginal and Maori people is to publicly apostatise from the Catholic or Christian religions of their colonizers. They need to return to their own traditional religions which both these churches and colonizers conspired to wipe from their memory in a truly religious and cultural genocide.

I call on all Aboriginal and Maori people to apostatise publicly and ask all the Raelians in Australia and New Zealand to start a world wide campaign to urge these people to apostatise in memory of their ancestors who were victims of this cultural and religious colonization still remaining to this day.

For Aboriginals and Maori people to remain Catholic or Christians is to betray their own people and disrespect the memory of their ancestors who were slaughtered without mercy.

I call on all these people to apostatise from the Catholic religion and to return to their roots and original religions, the ones of their ancestors before they were converted by force.

For one of these people to continue as a Christian is to betray their own people and is an insult to the memory of their ancestors".

That the pope apologizes publicly is not enough. Just as the Jews who were victims of nazi persecution continue to receive financial compensation from the German government, so too should the aborigine and other native victims also demand extensive compensation from the Vatican who can certainly afford it and whose vast wealth was built on the pillages and mistreatment of native populations such as the Incas and their gold. The Raelian Movement will help the Aboriginal and other victims sue the Vatican in order to obtain their long overdue financial compensation which they are guaranteed to receive following the admission of guilt in the pope's apologies.