Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQs) Regarding a Name Change for Columbus Catholic High School in Waterloo, Iowa
1. Why do we want to remove the name “Columbus” from our Catholic high school?
As stated on the opening page of our Website, we do not think that Columbus is worthy of the honor of having our school named for him because he was involved in the enslavement, mutilation, sexual abuse and killing of Native Americans, during his four voyages to the “New World.” These atrocities defile Christian values and are unworthy of honor. Although Columbus represented to the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, that his expeditions were intended to spread Christianity, his journals reflected that, when he reached the “New World,” Columbus focused more on searching for gold and other wealth than on Christian conversion. When Native Americans were unable to produce this wealth, Columbus resorted to physical abuse of the natives, including mutilation, and he also enslaved Native Americans to be sold on his return to Europe.
Columbus might be considered the “Father of Slavery” in the Americas because he enslaved and sold Native Americans approximately 100 years before Africans were enslaved and sold in North America. Although the Catholic Church condoned slavery, in certain circumstances, at the time of Columbus, the Church never condoned inhumane treatment, such as sexual abuse, rape, or killing of slaves or indigenous people. As noted by the historical documents, these atrocities occurred, at least in material part, with the authorization, approval and/or participation of Christopher Columbus. Today, the Church regards any form of slavery as evil and unacceptable. For this reason we are not willing to continue to have our school named for someone who engaged in this cruel and evil behavior toward his fellow human beings, and we feel morally obligated to insist that the name “Columbus” be removed from our school.
2. Who are the people that want to change the name of Columbus Catholic High School?
Most of us are alumni/ae of Columbus Catholic High School. The years we attended span the entire history of the school, from the 1960s to recent years. Our group also includes financial supporters of the Cedar Valley Catholic Schools and at least one past teacher at Columbus. Click here to see our current list of name change supporters. Anyone is welcome to join this effort, by contacting:
3. Have other honors to Christopher Columbus been changed in recent years?
At least 33 statues of Christopher Columbus have been removed or are in the process of being removed in various locations throughout the United States. Among the cities where statues of Columbus have been taken down are Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Boston, Camden, NJ, Detroit, Hartford, San Francisco, Sacramento, Philadelphia, Providence, Denver, San Antonio, and even two statues in Columbus, OH. And in many more places.
In an interview with CBS News, Jorge Baracutei Estevez, the cacike, or chief, of the Higuayagua Taíno, a cultural group dedicated to the rescue of Taino culture and language, said, "For [the statues] coming down, it's almost like a weight off my chest because it's like a validation." Estevez, now a curator at the Smithsonian museum in Washington, said that honoring Columbus with statues, with “all that understanding of the atrocities that was committed, it's right there in front of you” like, “This is me, I'm the one who did it. And I get a statue." Or, we would add, in the case of Columbus High School, a school named after you.
Additionally, names of places named after Columbus have been changed, including in Denver where Columbus Park was changed to La Raza Park. Columbus Park in Buffalo is also being renamed. It is also noteworthy that the following states now celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day or Native American Day, instead of Columbus Day: Arizona, Alaska, California, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin. See Wikipedia, Indigenous Peoples' Day, for a more inclusive list of cities and states who have decided not to celebrate Columbus Day, due to the wrongful conduct of Christopher Columbus.
4. Isn’t it disrespectful to Italian Americans to change the name of the school? After all, Columbus is a hero to many Italian Americans and many statues of Columbus were erected at the urging of Italian Americans.
While Columbus is a hero to many Italian Americans, this loyalty was developed prior to widespread public awareness of the wrongs he committed against Native Americans and does not appear to be the current position of a number of Italian Americans. In Chicago, for example, Gabriel Piemonte, president of the Italian American Heritage society, said, in reference to a statue of Columbus, “This symbol is dead. Italian Americans do not want it. It is a disgrace to the city. Make the removal permanent.” He also said, “As Italian Americans, we condemn the honoring of Columbus — the killer, mutilator and enslaver — and wish to convey loud and clear that there are members of our community who do not see this figure as a positive presence in our city.”
Moreover, there are other Italian Americans who can be honored and recognized who did not engage in wrongdoings such as Columbus. In Norwich, CT, a portrayal of Columbus has been removed and will be replaced with a statement honoring Italian immigrants to Norwich. In the specific case of Columbus Catholic High School, we are unaware of any history of Italian Americans requesting that the school be named for Columbus. We certainly do not intend in any way to disrespect Italian Americans. We just do not want our school named for someone who committed atrocities against his fellow human beings.
5. What authority provides historical evidence of Columbus’ involvement in atrocities against Native Americans? Where can I learn more about the actions of Columbus that make us want to remove his name from our school?
See our list of suggested readings and supporting evidence, which have been suggested by persons in our group who support removing Columbus’ name from our school (Click here)
6. If Columbus is not an appropriate name for our Catholic high school, or for any school, why didn't we call for a change sooner?
Unfortunately, we were not taught the accurate history of Christopher Columbus when most of us were in high school. Many of the original writings regarding Columbus' travels, including the personal observations of Columbus and his men by Dominican Fr. Bartolome de Las Casas, were only broadly published in relatively recent times. When our Catholic high school was originally named, the atrocities, which Columbus authorized, approved or participated in, were not well known or addressed.
That said, awareness of the realities of Columbus’ abusive treatment of native peoples has increased considerably beginning around 30 years ago. In the instance of the quincentenniel of Columbus’ voyage in 1992, many discussions arose of the destructive behaviors of Columbus during his voyages to the Americas and their harmful consequences. In hindsight, many of us wish we had brought this issue up sooner. Perhaps we stayed quiet because we knew that when you challenge any tradition, you are stirring up a hornet's nest. That has certainly been the case, if you look at many of the social media comments in the past year opposing the name change and even vitriol and name-calling directed toward some of those who have advocated the change. However, that is not really a good reason to remain silent. Sadly, we were not taught a true history of Columbus or many other historical figures in grade school or high school. That is not a specific indictment of our schools because that was true of schools everywhere when we were growing up. So when we were in school and shortly after we graduated, we did not know the truth. But we have learned it since, and in hindsight, we probably should have spoken out sooner. The fact that the appropriateness of Columbus' name for our Catholic high school was not previously and publicly addressed does not justify that the issue be ignored now. If the “Columbus” name does not properly reflect the values of our Catholic high school, when such issue is raised is irrelevant. If not now, when?
Some argue that our effort is an attempt to deny or erase history, but it is in fact the exact opposite of that. It is an attempt to tell history more in the way it really happened. To not honor someone is not to take them out of the history books. In the case of Columbus High School, if the name is changed, a plaque could be posted explaining the reasons why the school was originally named for him and why the name was eventually changed. In fact, this should be done. But as noted above, better late than never. If the name is wrong it is wrong, and the fact that it has not been challenged in the past does not mean that it should not be challenged now.
7. Was Columbus really as bad a person as his critics suggest? Wasn’t he a good Catholic more interested in spreading the Faith than in taking land, gold, or slaves? And didn’t he follow the policies of the Spanish royalty of not enslaving baptized persons?
If you look at writings of historians concerning Columbus, this is somewhat of a minority position, and it is undermined by Columbus’ own accounts of his voyages. The work of Father Bartolome de las Casas, a Columbus contemporary whose time in the West Indies overlaps with that of Columbus, and who transcribed some of Columbus's own journals, shows that Columbus engaged in killing, physical abuse and torture, and in the taking and trading of slaves. You can easily find this material on the Internet if you are interested – some of it is linked in our our list of suggested readings and supporting evidence, https://www.changechsname.org/suggested-reading. But let us for a moment assume that the aforementioned defenders of Columbus were right - he was more interested in spreading the faith than material acquisition, did not enslave baptized persons, and treated well the native people who converted to Christianity. Even if all that is true, he still was not a person worthy of honor. No matter how well he may have treated those who converted, it is not a matter of much dispute that in the case of those who resisted him, the treatment was very different. He took their land, tried to force them to bring him gold (that for the most part did not exist), and killed and dismembered people who would not submit to him. And took many of them, probably thousands all told, back to Spain to be sold as slaves. Taken as a whole, the evidence is strong that, while Columbus did seek to convert native peoples to Christianity and articulated a religious motive for his actions, he was more interested in finding gold, and when that turned out to be present only in limited quantities, profiting from the slave trade and helping Spain to profit from the slave trade. And that, toward these ends, he was willing to engage in considerable violence against his fellow human beings, particularly any who did not submit to his demands. Is that the kind of behavior that should be honored by having our high school named for Columbus? We think not, and you cannot escape the fact that the person who is honored by having our school named after him did these things.
8. Aren’t we judging a person of the past by today's standards? After all, Columbus was just acting as many did on behalf of the Church and the Spanish Crown.
Responding to this argument requires some historical context about just what kind of era Columbus lived in. It was a historically ugly era in Church and Spanish history. The Inquisition was under way in Spain. People were killed and tortured if they expressed religiously "incorrect" views. This included people who were even suspected of being Jewish or Muslim. Some people are criticizing the move to change the name of the school as "political correctness" but if you want to see what that really looks like, take a look at the Spanish Inquisition. Anyone who expressed views deemed “incorrect” by the inquisitors were subject to torture and/or death, including by brutal means such as being burned at the stake. Also in that time the royalty of Spain and Portugal were taking slaves from Africa and doing it with the APPROVAL of the Catholic Church. At that time the Church regarded slavery as acceptable as long as the enslaved person had not been baptized and was not submitted to torture. The Pope had even gone so far as to say that the Spanish and Portuguese royalty could engage in the African slave trade, and agreed to a division of the Americas into regions where land and natives would be subject to the church-approved rule of Spain and Portugal. Again, including enslavement of those who resisted and/or refused Baptism. One pope (Innocent VII) even accepted a gift of 100 slaves from King Ferdinand and distributed those slaves to bishops and to Roman nobility.
Today the Catholic Church regards such behavior as sinful and has admitted that what it did then was wrong. If the Church can admit that this behavior was sinful and wrong, why would we today want to celebrate it with the naming of our school? In addition, while the church did condone slavery under some circumstances at that time, the Church has never condoned the inhumane treatment of slaves, characterized as “unjust slavery.” See Wikipedia, “Catholic Church and Slavery,” pages 1-33, and documents noted in our “Suggested Readings and Supporting Evidence” page, https://www.changechsname.org/suggested-reading. The conduct of Christopher Columbus in authorizing, approving and/or participating in the physical abuse, mutilation, sexual abuse and killing of Native Americans was not condoned by the Catholic Church then or now.
And there is a more American argument about why we do not want to celebrate a figure like Columbus or his life and times. The accepted notion in Columbus's era - and he most certainly accepted it and was an example of it - was that a country had an established religion and the right to enforce belief in and practice of that religion by law and by military action. This led to the Inquisition, in Spain and other countries (which was also brought eventually to the New World in the form of the Mexican Inquisition). In Spain, the Inquisition was established as law by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the same people who funded Columbus’ expeditions. The notion of state-established religion, which was widely accepted in the world at the time and for centuries afterwards, led to widespread warfare, martyrdom, torture, and death all over the world. It was not strictly a Catholic notion; Muslims and, once they came along, Protestants, did the same thing. Sometimes Catholics were the perpetrators, but in other cases (think Henry VIII) they were on the receiving end. The Crusades, which are sometimes cited as a motivation for Columbus voyages (looking for a new route by which to free Jerusalem from the Muslims), are a perfect example of this mentality, on both sides. It was the religious duty of Muslims to convert Christians and kill them if they would not convert, and it was the religious duty of Christians to do the same to Muslims and "take back" land that had fallen under Muslim control. This mentality led to centuries of endless battles and warfare in Europe, the British Isles, the Middle East, and elsewhere. And the formation of the United States was a reaction against it.
Political conservatives in the United States love to talk about "American exceptionalism" but they often fail to understand its most important element. The United States was the first country in the world to explicitly renounce the concept of state-established religion. Here, there would be no official religion into which people would be forced to comply, like what Columbus was doing in the West Indies. Here, people would be free to practice whatever religion they wanted, unlike Spain, England, France, Portugal, the Ottoman Empire, and nearly everywhere in the West at the time the United States was formed. So yes, Columbus lived in a different era, but his advancement of the practices of that era is not something that we should want to honor. Ironically, naming things for Columbus is often seen as patriotic, but the reality is that the beliefs and the regime that Columbus was promoting were about as un-American as anything could be, because they were in diametric opposition to the founding principle of this country, freedom of religion and freedom from state-established religion. This principle is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and is a principle that nearly all the world has now joined the U.S. in accepting.
9. Isn’t this just another example of “cancel culture,” trying to erase history by taking away names and monuments that honor figures important in the history of the United States?
No. We are not attempting to erase the history of Christopher Columbus, but only to tell that history in an accurate way, and to demonstrate why Columbus should not be commemorated by the name of a Catholic high school or of any school. It is not unreasonable to believe that the persons who originally named our Catholic high school would have disapproved the name of “Columbus” if they had known that Columbus, and men under his command, enslaved, mutilated, sexually abused and killed Native Americans. Such conduct is diametrically opposed to Christian values. Removing the name, “Columbus,” from our Catholic high school is not “cancel culture,” but is “Christian culture” – following the principles of treating others as we would like to be treated ourselves, and speaking up against evils such as slavery, torture, mutilation, sexual abuse, and murder – all activities that were carried out against Native peoples by Columbus and/or those under his supervision.
We are not about cancelling history, but rather about telling history in a more honest, accurate, and complete way. Yes, Columbus had some very real accomplishments, but he also behaved in ways that were extremely immoral and destructive. We believe it is important to tell the full story of Columbus. The historical marker we proposed if the name is changed is an important part of this, telling both why the school was originally named for Columbus and why the decision was made later to change the name. And it is equally important that, in our school and in all schools, the entire story of Columbus, including both the good and bad, needs to be told. Taken as a whole, the evidence is strong that Columbus was more interested in finding gold than in saving souls, and when gold turned out to be present only in limited quantities, he turned to seeking profit for himself and for the Spanish Crown from the slave trade. And that, toward these ends, he was willing to engage in considerable violence against his fellow human beings, particularly any who did not submit to his demands.
10. Wasn’t our school really named for the Knights of Columbus, the organization that played a crucial role in getting the various parishes together to form the school?
While the Knights of Columbus may have had some influence upon the naming of our school, it is clear that the school was named for Christopher Columbus. On page 11 of the Twenty-Five Year Annual of Columbus High (1959-1983), it states: "Columbus High School was named for Christopher Columbus who was a man of great courage and began an adventure without knowing what the future might hold. Those attending Columbus that first year were very much like that man."
If you would have asked any alumni/ae of our Catholic high school, at the time they were attending CHS, whom their school was named after, it is reasonably certain that the answer would have been: “Christopher Columbus.” It is disingenuous to say that “Christopher Columbus is not the patron of Columbus Catholic High School.” Whether or not Columbus is the “patron” of the school, it is clear that it was named for him. Unfortunately, this disingenuous claim is unfortunately being utilized to evade the moral issue of Columbus' wrongful conduct. See CVCS Board's Statement, in its minutes, dated October 1, 2020, or view our group’s response to that statement at https://www.changechsname.org/s/Group-response-to-CVCS-October-1-Statement.pdf. For a more detailed analysis of the Board's Statement, see Essay: “Naming a School After Christopher Columbus” at https://www.changechsname.org/s/Naming-a-School-after-Christopher-Columbus.pdf.
There is no question that the local Knights of Columbus were instrumental in the original construction of our Catholic high school. There is also no question that the Knights of Columbus were founded by Blessed Father Michael McGivney, based primarily on the principle of charity, which included support of our Catholic schools. The state and local Knights of Columbus have consistently conducted their Council activities in accordance with the concept of charity. It is disparaging to suggest that the local KC's or Father McGivney would have ever approved naming a Catholic school after a person who committed atrocities. The strong likelihood is that no one involved in the naming of our school knew about Columbus' actions in enslaving and harming human beings when our school was built in 1959. There is no intended disrespect of the Catholic Church or of the Knights of Columbus in requesting that the name of “Columbus” be removed from our Catholic high school, but only that such name be removed in accordance with our basic Christian principles.
11. Will there be a financial cost of removing the name of Columbus from our school?
Although there is no doubt some cost involved, we believe that this argument is largely a red herring. If “Columbus” is removed from our school’s name, the colors would not need to be changed and the Sailor mascot could be retained. We can, and in our opinion, should, stay the Sailors. No reason to change the Green and White, either. And, although we are not suggesting any specific new name (see FAQ 12), there are a number of other names that could be given to our school that would fit equally well with those themes. And things like uniforms, signs, banners, etc. could be gradually replaced over time, spreading out any cost over time.
The name of what is now MercyOne Waterloo Medical Center has been changed twice, and they seem to have survived financially. All that said, some who support a name change have indicated that they would be willing to help out with any financial costs of a name change.
12. If the name is changed, what would the new name be?
At this time, we are not proposing a new name, because that is a separate issue. Our point is that our school should NOT be named for someone who did the things that Christopher Columbus did. If we can agree on that principle, we can agree that the name Columbus must be removed. We can then move on to a separate discussion later concerning what the new name should be. This model has been followed in a number of other cases where problematic names have been changed or removed, among them the Washington Football Team and the former Stapleton neighborhood in Denver.
We would note that we have received word that the Archdiocese of Dubuque is considering new guidelines for building names that would require that they be named after canonized saints or references to the Holy Trinity. While it is our understanding that the current intent is not to apply any new naming policy retroactively, we would note that our school’s current name would be out of compliance with the new policy. Obviously, any new name would require the approval of the CVCS Board and the Archdiocese of Dubuque.
13. Aren’t you attacking tradition and being disloyal to our school by wanting to change its name?
No. The values of a school are far more important than its name. What makes a school is the people and the learning that goes on there. The teachers, students, staff, alumni/ae, and those who support the school. A name change does not change any of that. The learning goes on, and we are all still Sailors. Those of us who seek a name change are long-standing loyal alumni/ae and supporters of our school. But now that we know the full truth of Columbus, which neither we nor anyone else were taught when we were in school – not at our school and not at other schools – we do not want to have our school named for a person whose behavior is contrary to the values we were taught there. Values such as the Golden Rule, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Our school is too good to be named for someone who went against the Golden Rule. It should not have a name honoring someone who, regardless of their accomplishments, committed great evils that harmed his fellow human beings. If you have read this far, thank you for reading, and