Graydon Nicholas, a retired lawyer, judge and an elder from the Wolastoqey First Nation in New Brunswick, understands only too well the negative impact of colonization on Indigenous people in the Americas.

He also understands the role the Roman Catholic Church played in it through what became known as the Doctrine of Discovery — the idea that by “discovering” the Americas, colonizing countries like Spain and Portugal could claim Indigenous land as their own.

But Nicholas, who is Roman Catholic, also believes the story is more complicated than most people realize and also incomplete without noting opposition from those in the Church during that age of discovery and conquest.

That includes Dominican priests such as Antonio de Montesinos, who publicly condemned Spanish and Portuguese abuses against Indigenous people in the Americas during that time.

LONDON (AP) — Counterterrorism detectives in Scotland were investigating after five people were injured in attacks in Edinburgh that appeared to target Muslims, police said Saturday.

Police Scotland said that a 36-year-old man was arrested late Friday after officers received multiple reports of attacks in the west and north of the city.

The force said that five men — two of them age 22, and others ages 24, 27 and 39 — sustained a range of injuries and three needed hospital treatment. None of the injuries is considered life-threatening.

The charity Muslim Engagement and Development said that several of those injured are Muslim. The Scottish Association of Mosques said that two of the injured men were attacked after attending prayers at their local mosque.

Due to unprecedented levels of antisemitism in Canada in the last few years, most organizers of Jewish community events, in Winnipeg as elsewhere across the country, no longer publicly advertise the location of those events, choosing instead to share that information only with those who are registered in advance and, in some cases, only to those who provide proof of identification.

The fact that the organizers of a conference entitled Faith Not Fear still felt the need to follow that practice is less ironic than it is pragmatic. Not publicly identifying the conference’s location seemed to be the only way to ensure that its participants could safely meet to learn about protecting themselves, their community institutions and their freedom to walk through university campuses and city streets without being harassed because of their religion, culture or an international conflict in which they play no part.

Faith Not Fear: Building Jewish Leadership for a New Era in Canada took place in Vaughan, Ont., on the evening of Sunday, June 14. It was, as Simon Wolle, CEO of conference co-sponsor B’nai Brith Canada, explains, “a fresh initiative bringing together voices and organizations at a time when there is a national crisis of antisemitism.”

“The conference was inspired by the need to address Canada’s systemic failure to address threats to the Jewish community, the ongoing threat to Canadian values and its effect on the lived experience of Jewish Canadians in particular,” Wolle said.