Buffalo News: Oren Lyons was supposed to be in California this week. He planned to travel there with his son Rex, an Haudenosaunee Nationals lacrosse administrator busy preparing for this summer’s 2023 World Lacrosse men’s championships, in San Diego.
At 93, that journey would have fit the philosophy Lyons does his best to embrace: “I thank the Creator every morning, when I get up. I give thanks for this day, another day. Then you roll up your sleeves, and you get out there.”
Yet an episode of shingles – as painful as any illness Lyons ever encountered – forced him to rest and recover for a few weeks, which meant skipping the trip. He was already feeling better this week when he received another boost, his mobile phone erupting Thursday morning as friends and allies called with news Lyons waited much of his life to hear:
The Vatican had publicly repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery,” the rationale – built upon a series of centuries-old papal “bulls” – that colonial Christian powers had the moral right to claim and possess new lands they had “discovered.”