On October 12, 1997, a small group of human and indigenous rights activists gathered outside of the Roman Catholic Diocese in Honolulu, Hawai'i to symbolically burn copies of the 1493 papal bull Inter Caetera. This first annual bulls burning event demonstrated against so-called "Columbus Day," or "Discoverer's Day" as it's known in Hawai'i, and was a global call for indigenous peoples and supporters to take action to have the Vatican revoke the bull. Television coverage was extensive at this first burning, and a number of news stories have been done on the event. In 1998, a group of 50-60 activists and students gathered again in Honolulu to demand the revocation of Inter Caetera, and called for it to be revoked by the year 2000. This response parallels Pope John Paul II's call that Christianity's 2000th anniversary be "a year of mercy," as reported by AP, saying "the church will seek forgiveness," "atonement," and that he "wants the church to enter the third millennium with a clear conscience" (November 28, 1998). The idea to hold a symbolic burning originated from a philosophical discussion on the "Kanakamaoliallies" Hawaiian sovereignty internet discussion group. The coordinator of the "Papal Bulls Burning" is Tony Castanha, a Caribe/Boricua descendant, and a member of Ka Pakaukau and the Matsunaga Institute for Peace.

The papal bulls burning is a continuation of a movement to revoke the bull Inter Caetera initiated by the Indigenous Law Institute in 1992 (see "Five Hundred Years of Injustice" by Steve Newcomb, Director, Indigenous Law Institute). This formal papal edict, like many others issued before it, essentially sanctioned 15th century Portuguese and Spanish genocide campaigns into Africa and the Americas. These decrees established Christian dominion and called for the subjugation of non-Christian peoples and their lands (Newcomb, 1992). The colonial Spanish affirmed that "the bulls gave them the right to use just war to convert local populations who had refused to immediately accept Christianity" (Donovan 1992). The 1493 bull issued by Pope Alexander VI to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain granted unlimited rights to Spain, and the subsequent 1494 "Treaty of Tordesillas" (inspired by Inter Caetera) divided the world in half, everything 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands went to Spain, everything east went to Portugal (Gottschalk 1927). Because Inter Caetera concedes rights of conquest to both Spain and Portugal, the Indigenous Law Institute has focused on revoking the 1493 document (Newcomb 1993). Finally, at the May 1999 conference of the Hague Appeal for Peace, both Newcomb and Castanha spoke on the issue of religious conquest and submitted material on the major HAP themes of "The Root Causes of War" and "A Culture of Peace."

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