Celebrate Columbus Day for Spreading Christianity and Western Civilization to the New World

As I do every year, I post on Columbus Day (October 12, the anniversary of the Discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492 on behalf of Spain) or on the legal federal and state holiday that commemorate the discovery and explain why it is worthy to celebrate the greatest event in human history. I have explained that Columbus’ scientific discovery of a western an oceanic route to the New World from the Old World, which was based on his keen observations that led him to theorize correctly that a large land mass inhabited by Asiatic people existed much closer to Europe than thought, among other scientific discoveries he made, meet the definition of a discovery (an uncovering), even though others had arrived first, namely the Indigenous Americans who came across the land bridge from Asia during the Ice Age. I have noted how Columbus’ great navigational skills, unlike the discoveries by other Europeans before him of the Americas, bridged the two worlds permanently by lifting the cover of the Atlantic Ocean that had hidden the two Hemispheres of the world from each other for millions of years. I have observed how some nativist bigots in America, like the Ku Klux Klan, who hate Southern Europeans and Catholics, had sought to minimize the achievement of Columbus by promoting the Leif Ericson legend and that Columbus Day was thus intended as a day to appreciate the contributions of immigrants and refugees to America. But this year, with a controversy among Latin American leaders about the legacy of Columbus, I note the Genoese navigator brought Christianity and Western European Civilization to the Western Hemisphere. Although some of the Indigenous Americans had already been civilized and had remarkable accomplishments, and others not civilized, they all lacked knowledge of God and the Judeo-Christian beliefs of a rational universe created by God and of equality among all human beings created in His likeness. These beliefs were developed through Western Civilization, which itself was influenced by Greco-Roman civilization, forming the basis for modern science, liberty and representative government, among other contributions to mankind. These beliefs led Columbus and the Spanish to save Indigenous American tribes from victimization by other Indigenous tribes from the most vicious cannibalism or massive human sacrifice ever known in the world by abolishing these atrocious practices, among other terrible practices in the Americas before European contact, including slavery and genocide. Despite atrocities and abuses committed by some of the Western Europeans themselves against some of the Indigenous Americans, the contributions of Christianity and Western Civilization ought not to be minimized and cannot reasonably be dismissed based particularly upon multiculturalist ideas that themselves were brought from the West. It is worthy to appreciate the cultures of Indigenous Peoples, but not necessary or appropriate to acknowledge their contributions by exaggerating their accomplishments or ignoring their culture’s faults, or by denigrating the Faith and the cultural contributions of Westerners, no matter the human faults of the purveyors of Christianity and Western Civilization, as many on the Left do who do not appreciate Christianity or Western Civilization. To celebrate Columbus Day is not only to celebrate the rejoining of the two Hemispheres and the reuniting of the separated members of the human family who inhabited them, but nothing less than to celebrate the spread of the Good News of Christ and the ideals and benefits of Western Civilization, which has brought great improvements to the entire world.