Pope Leo XIV made an historic apology for the Vatican’s role in legitimating the slave trade.
Leo called the Vatican’s role a “wound in Christian memory.”
While previous popes have apologized for the involvement of Christians in the Transatlantic slave trade, none has apologized for the Catholic Church’s role, which consisted of providing authority to European rulers to enslave “infidels.”
US-born Leo delivered the apology in his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitatis” (Manificent Humanity).
The encyclical focuses on artificial intelligence and its role in creating new forms of slavery and exploitation.
“It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord,” Leo wrote. “For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon.”
A series of Papal directives in the 15th century, including the bull “Dum Diversas,” gave European rulers the right to conquer the lands of non-Christians and subjugate them.
In acknowledging the Vatican’s role in the slave trade, Leo wrote, “Already in the early modern period, the Apostolic See of Rome, responding to the requests of sovereigns, intervened several times in order to regulate and legitimize forms of subjugation, and, in certain cases, including the enslavement of ‘infidels.’”
He added that it isn’t possible to judge the moral decisions of the past by today’s standards, “yet neither can we deny or diminish the delay with which both society and the church came to denounce the scourge of slavery.”
Leo continued by saying that the Church must stand up against all forms of exploitation related to the digital revolution “if we want to avoid the need to ask for pardon again in the future for having failed to respect the treasure of human dignity that is required by our faith.”
During a visit to Angola, a former Portuguese colony last month, Leo prayed at a Catholic shrine on the site of an important hub of the slave trade.
At the sanctuary of Mama Muxima, the Pope referenced the “sorrow and great suffering” Angolans had endured, but did not mention slavery specifically.
8 Responses
Will it save you from God’s wrath? I’m not sure Mr. Pope.
FOCUS ON THE SINS OF SLAVERY IN THE PRESENT, NOT ANCIENT HISTORY… First off, there must be a distinction between employees/slaves/indentured servants/taxpayers/citizens who are treated Christlike by their employer/master/leader and who are not. The sin is not in keeping, maintaining
and leading employees/slaves/indentured servants/taxpayers/citizens, the sin is in how the employer/master/leader treats the employee/slave/indentured servant/taxpayer/citizen.
In these Divided States, unrepentant devil worshipers (who currently unethically, illegally and unconstitutionally occupy at least 97 percent of the most meaningful positions of power and authority over others in the government and private sector human power structures) within in the three branches of the local, state and federal government cruelly and unusually enslave other unrepentant devil worshipers and our best citizens aka those born with the mark/777 of the Holy Spirit, who have experienced their regeneration/born again moment by knowingly and intentionally, with malice aforethought and a depraved mind acting in word and deed as they conduct their official duties in gross violation of a correct interpretation and application of our absolute Constitution and most importantly God’s holy immutable laws, in so doing to protect, reward and fund disobedience to God’s holy immutable laws, and shun, shame, limit, punish and defund obedience to God’s holy immutable laws, thus enslaving our best citizens by disobey God’s holy immutable laws in thought, word and deed or suffer unjust cancellation, bankruptcy, starvation, torture, false imprisonment or martyrdom, as the tax oppessed, working class, citizen peasant masses witnessed and experienced for over 1000 days during the man-made, CCP/Democrat bio-weapon virus wars, that were cruelly and unusually inflicted upon them by the made men and made women and associates of the RICO Democrat and RICO RINO Republican crime families, for their own temporary and finite, political, power, control and financial gain.
God will justly adjudicate the sins of those he has removed from their earthly existence on the judgment seat of God, Jesus the Christ; we who are still living out our earthly existence need to focus on our sins and the sins of others in the not so distant past, present and future.
Every human is a slave, either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness.
ORIGINAL SIN… If Leo wishes to act as the current godfather of the Roman Catholic crime family, he should first apologize to the true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for the Roman Catholic crime family teaching the abominable heresy that the gracious/umerited, righteous saving work of God, Jesus the Christ on Calvary’s cross was insufficient, in that it only started the process of saving a human from God’s holy wrath, which is the just penalty against all God’s human creation for violating the Genesis 2:16-17 contract, and that man must add his or her perceived good works to what God, Jesus the Christ achieved on Calvary’s cross in order to be saved, which enslaved millions and millions of humans over the centuries to the heresy that faith plus works equals justification, rather than the truth of the gospel of Jesus the Christ, that a human is saved from God’s holy wrath by God’s grace/umerited favor alone, through faith alone, because of God, Jesus the Christ and his righteousness alone, sanctified by God’s grace alone, glorified by God’s grace alone, all for God’s glory alone, lest any man should boast. Amen
Yeah, ok…now open the gates of the Vatican to foreigners.
exactly!!
Never trust a religious man.
So how much is he going to compensate the “infidels” for this great injustice?
20 acres and a mule?