What about the charge that the Catholic Church did not condemn slavery until the 1890s and actually approved of it before then? In fact, the popes vigorously condemned African and Indian thralldom three and four centuries earlier a fact amply documented by Fr. Joel Panzer in his book,
The Popes and Slavery. The argument that follows is largely based on his study.
Sixty years before Columbus discovered the New World, Pope Eugene IV condemned the enslavement of peoples in the newly colonized Canary Islands. His bull
Sicut Dudum (1435) rebuked European enslavers and commanded that all and each of the faithful of each sex, within the space of fifteen days of the publication of these letters in the place where they live, that they restore to their earlier liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of [the] Canary Islands . . . who have been made subject to slavery. These people are to be totally and perpetually free and are to be let go without the exaction or reception of any money.
A century later, Pope Paul III applied the same principle to the newly encountered inhabitants of the West and South Indies in the bull
Sublimis Deus (1537). Therein he described the enslavers as allies of the devil and declared attempts to justify such slavery null and void. Accompanying the bull was another document, Pastorale Officium, which attached a latae sententiae excommunication remittable only by the pope himself for those who attempted to enslave the Indians or steal their goods.
When Europeans began enslaving Africans as a cheap source of labor, the Holy Office of the Inquisition was asked about the morality of enslaving innocent blacks (
Response of the Congregation of the Holy Office, 230, March 20, 1686). The practice was rejected, as was trading such slaves.
Slaveholders, the Holy Office declared, were obliged to emancipate and even compensate blacks unjustly enslaved.
Papal condemnation of slavery persisted throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Pope Gregory XVIs 1839 bull,
In Supremo, for instance, reiterated papal opposition to enslaving Indians, blacks, or other such people and forbade any ecclesiastic or lay person from presuming to defend as permissible this trade in blacks under no matter what pretext or excuse. In 1888 and again in 1890, Pope Leo XIII forcefully condemned slavery and sought its elimination where it persisted in parts of South America and Africa.
Despite this evidence, critics still insist the Magisterium did too little too late regarding slavery. Why? One reason is the critics failure to distinguish between just and unjust forms of servitude. The Magisterium condemned unjust enslavement early on, but it also recognized what is known as just title slavery. That included forced servitude of prisoners of war and criminals, and voluntary servitude of indentured servants, forms of servitude mentioned at the outset of this article. But chattel slavery as practiced in the United States and elsewhere differed in kind, not merely degree, from just tide slavery. For it made a claim on the slave as property and enslaved people who were not criminals or prisoners of war. By focusing on just title servitude, critics unfairly neglect the vigorous papal denunciations of chattel slavery.
The matter is further muddled by certain nineteenth century American clergy including some bishops and theologians who tried to defend the American slave system. They contended that the long-standing papal condemnations of slavery didn't apply to the United States. The slave trade, some argued, had been condemned by Pope Gregory XVI, but not slavery itself.
Historians critical of the papacy on this matter often make that same argument. But papal teaching condemned both the slave trade and chattel slavery itself (leaving aside just tide servitude, which wasn't at issue). It was certain members of the American hierarchy of the time who explained away that teaching. Thus, according to Fr. Panzer, we can look to the practice of non-compliance with the teachings of the papal Magisterium as a key reason why slavery was not directly opposed by the Church in the United States.
Another reason may have been the precarious position of the Catholic Church in America before the twentieth century. Catholics were a small and much-despised minority. They were subject to repeated, sometimes violent attacks by Protestant Nativists. In many ways, the American hierarchy of the day was trying to protect the Catholics immigrating to the U.S. and did not regard itself as in a position to be the leader in a major social crusade.
Does development justify every change?
For many Catholics today the key question is: Does previous Catholic practice regarding slavery amount to a change of doctrine such as would allow Catholic teaching on other subjects such as contraception and abortion to change as well?
The answer: In no way. The Church's teaching about the dignity and basic equality of all human beings has been clarified to such a degree that any earlier ambiguity about the tolerance of chattel slavery has been eradicated. The Church's teaching regarding contraception and abortion can also be said to have developed, but not in the direction of approving those practices...
Does all of this let individual Catholics off the hook when it comes to slavery? Certainly not. Those who in invincible ignorance owned slaves and regarded them as mere property did what is objectively evil, regardless of their subjective inculpability. Certainly their slaves suffered even if their masters somehow lacked full culpability due to invincible ignorance. And, of course, those who were deliberately cruel to their slaves committed grave sins that stand under Gods judgment.
At the same time, Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular contributed greatly to the abolition of slavery and the emergence of a common appreciation for fundamental human rights. Catholics, not Protestants, worked for the abolition of slavery in Latin American countries like Brazil. The Catholic appreciation of natural law as opposed to the Protestant principle of
sola scriptura (when Scripture tells slaves to obey their masters) has always made slavery less reconcilable with Catholicism than Protestantism. The Church's consistent teaching that all men are made in Gods image and are called to redemption in Christ has helped give rise to the modern notion of human rights and equality ideas diametrically opposed to chattel slavery and that have led to a great diminishment in its practice.
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