Native Americans opposing Dakota Access get a boost from Pope Francis

February 15, 2017
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post

Two Native American tribes are fighting the Dakota Access oil pipeline in a federal court, but on Wednesday they appeared to get support from a higher authority — Pope Francis.

Pope Francis, a longtime defender of indigenous rights, said that the need to reconcile development with those rights was “especially clear when planning economic activities that may interfere with indigenous cultures and their ancestral relationship to the Earth,” according to a report by Reuters.