Observing MLK Day and Black History Month by learning about the Church’s relationship to slavery and the slave trade.
Review by Christine Way Skinner
What is the relationship of the Roman Catholic Church to slavery? Has it explicitly supported slavery… opposed it? Has its teaching changed over time? These are some of the questions that Fr. Chris Kellerman, SJ wrestles with in his book All Oppression Shall Cease: A History of Slavery, Abolitionism and the Catholic Church. Fr. Kellerman shared some of his findings with us in a CLC webinar on January 20th. We learned that, indeed, the Catholic Church, including Kellerman’s own religious congregation of the Jesuits, supported “the enslavement of both black human beings made in God’s image and Indigenous human beings made in God’s image.” Kellerman led us through a history of the Judeo-Christian relationship to the institutions of slavery from biblical times through to the present. He pointed out that slavery is evident in biblical times both before and after the time of Christ. The early church adopted the Roman notion of slavery which held that slavery was permitted under some circumstances. At the time it was not primarily a racially linked practice but rather typically affected foreigners, such as people captured in war or purchased in slave markets in foreign lands. A Roman citizen could not be a slave. Throughout the church’s history, many of our most important theologians defended slavery including Augustine, Aquinas and a variety of popes. Augustine, for instance, believed slavery to be God’s punishment for a person’s sin. A number of popes, including Gregory the Great, were slaveholders. But one cannot excuse the support of slavery as simply the predominant views of bygone eras for there were also many throughout history who argued against the practice. These included the Essenes who lived at the time of Christ, Gregory of Nyssa (4th century), the Abbot Smaragdus (8th century), and Duns Scotus (13th century).
Having discussed the concept of slavery in general, Kellerman then walked us through the historical development of the Atlantic slave trade. He explained the medieval debate in the church regarding whether non-Christians possessed dominium (dominion or governance) over their lands (the roots of the Doctrine of Discovery). It was in the context of this debate that, in 1452, Pope Nicholas V made the tragic decision to reject the dominium of non-Christians and give Portugal (and many after) the right to take the lands and possessions of non-Christians and to raid their communities for the procurement of slaves.
It was not until the mid-1800s that we hear the first official condemnation of the African slave trade from the church. This was by Pope Gregory XVI. Kellerman acknowledged, however, that in his condemnation, the pontiff falsely declared that the church had always opposed slavery - a false narrative that would continue thenceforth. It took another half-century, under the papacy of Leo XIII, for the church to become fully and finally abolitionist.
We do, says Kellerman, still have substantial work to do in reckoning with our past. We have yet to make a formal admission of and apology for our formal role in the enslavement of peoples. There will need to a process of truth-telling. There will need to be a process of apology. And there will need to be a process of reparation. In all of these processes, it is imperative that we place the practice of listening to those who bear the wounds of slavery at the centre.
Make it stand out
The book is All Oppression Shall Cease: A History of Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Catholic Church. It is published by Orbis Books.