Different Values: Catholics vs Indians - Essay Example

The missionaries initially arrived in the land with the aim of converting the Indians into Catholicism, but their confession manuals fail to identify a true value of their judgment.  The Confession Manuals depict lust as the most prevalent sin, above drunkenness, lying, murder or stealing and did not value the Indians’ norms that governed the transition into adulthood. This portrays the missionaries as a group of self-righteous people who are out to satisfy their own lust, despite accusing the Indians of lust.

They are missionaries who are expected to be well conversant with the 10 commandments, but are only focused on the sixth one. It does not help that they even raped virgin Indian women. On the Indians’ part, they may have punished both men and women equally for sexual transgressions, but they also had their unconventional norms that allowed them to dissolve marriages or change partners for reasons that seemed purely for adventure. In conclusion, the reading brings forth both the missionaries and Indians as having unconventional norms, albeit the fact that the norms have guided their lives before encountering each other.

The different values come out distinctly as inappropriate for the modern world.