Catholics and The History of Slavery

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Hi everyone, I am a current college student who has a history class. I have heard many times that Catholics tended to tolerate slavery during the transatlantic slave trade, in particular, for the Spaniards who apparently enslaved natives claiming that they were teaching them Catholicism. I know that this isn’t true, but why does everyone think that the Catholic church supported slavery? Does anyone have any defensive argument concerning this topic? Thank you all!
 
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BTW, not saying the Spaniards treated the natives perfectly, but the Portuguese were the worse offenders.

One argument I always find works when people bring up how horribly the Catholic countries treated native Americans is very simple. Compare the predominant color of skin in the Latin American countries with the USA and Canada. It should be obvious that the native Americans in those countries perhaps were not quite as badly treated as in this country.
 
The Roman Catholic Church did, in fact, tolerate the institution of slavery. The council of Gangra, whose canons were accepted by the ecumenical council of Chalcedon, had forbidden anyone to preach the doctrine that slaves should flee from their masters. Granted, there were saintly figures, such as St. Patrick, who were against slavery, but the official Roman Catholic position was more complicated than that. You could even check the position of the old Catholic Encyclopedia in NewAdvent.
 
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The Church has issued several papal bulls that specifically calls enslaving Christians wrong, but is fine with enslaving non-Christians. For example there is Creator Omnium, Regimini Gregis, and Sicut Dudum.

The last one is especially troublesome. The Portuguese were enslaving the people of the Canary Islands. With Sicut Dudm, Pope Eugene IV in 1435 talks about this practice and how disappointed he was that some of the people who were enslaved were baptized or promised to become baptized.
"Some of these people were already baptized; others were even at times tricked and deceived by the promise of Baptism, having been made a promise of safety that was not kept.
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It’s the line “promise of safety” that is most telling. The Church was fine with baptisms offering a protection against slavery as it encouraged more people to become baptized. With the Portuguese taking Christians that inducement for people to get baptized for safety purposes was gone. And so there is no question as to the Church’s position on this matter, a year after releasing Sicut Dudum the same pope released another bull making clear that the Portuguese had the right to take over those Canary Islands not converted to Christianity.
 
You cannot Kay the accusation if genocide against he Spanish. It us historically false.

Against the US? Perhaps. But not Spain. They never, in any country set out to systematically kill the natives.
 
On January 13, 1435, Pope Eugene IV issued from Florence the bull . Sent to Bishop Ferdinand, located at Rubicon on the island of Lanzarote, this bull condemned the enslavement of the black natives of the newly colonized Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. The Pope stated that after being converted to the faith or promised baptism, many of the inhabitants were taken from their homes and enslaved.
 
Dan_Defender said:
On January 13, 1435, Pope Eugene IV issued from Florence the bull . Sent to Bishop Ferdinand, located at Rubicon on the island of Lanzarote, this bull condemned the enslavement of the black natives of the newly colonized Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. The Pope stated that after being converted to the faith or promised baptism, many of the inhabitants were taken from their homes and enslaved.
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That’s what I noted above about the Portuguese taken away those natives of the islands who were baptized or promised to become baptized. There was no concern for those natives who were enslaved but not Christian. In fact, the pope was more upset that this enslaving of Christians would take away from the “promise of safety” that came with baptism and thus there would be less baptisms. Using Sicut Dudum to defend the Church’s position on slavery is like using Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle to defend the meatpacking industry.

If the Church were then truly against slavery as a whole and not just the slavery of Christians then it would have said so in those bulls that forbade enslaving just Christians. It wouldn’t have owned slaves. It wouldn’t have allowed slavery in Dum Diversas. It would not have said convincing a slave to flee his master makes that person anathema (excommunicated).
 
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Isearch said:
The Roman Catholic Church did, in fact, tolerate the institution of slavery. The council of Gangra, whose canons were accepted by the ecumenical council of Chalcedon, had forbidden anyone to preach the doctrine that slaves should flee from their masters.
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Well, first, the same word is used for slave and servant, so it is unclear which is being referred to. But even if it’s outright slaves, people often forget this portion:

“If any one shall teach a slave, under pretext of piety, to despise his master and to run away from his service, and not to serve his own master with good-will and all honour, let him be anathema.”

The prohibition is not on telling slaves/servants to run away from service, but when it is done under pretext of piety; other reasons are not condemned and would presumably therefore be acceptable. If it was just a flat ban, there would have been no need to include that part.

It’s not fully clear what “under pretext of piety” means. But the council was mostly focused on stopping an extreme form of asceticism, so what it was probably condemning was when slaves/servants quit for the purpose of being ascetics.
 
That’s because of diseases and they didn’t have control over that.
 
SOME Catholics (and a much higher proportion of protestants, by the way) tolerated slavery or even owned slaves themselves. The Catholic Church has always condemned chattel and racial slavery (i.e. the type of slavery that existed in America from the 16th to 19th centuries) which is what virtually everyone has in mind when they hear the word “slavery”.

I suppose in future centuries there will be an anti-Catholic myth that “in the early 21st century the Catholic Church tolerated contraception, divorce, abortion and homosexual sodomy”, because some (perhaps even most), (often nominal) “Catholics” at the time tolerated or even engaged in these things.
 
Isearch said:
forbidden anyone to preach the doctrine that slaves should flee from their masters.
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That does not mean that they tolerated or agreed with slavery. It means that, in accordance with St Paul, Christians should submit to the law even when it treats them unjustly.
 
Mike_from_NJ said:
If the Church were then truly against slavery as a whole
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The Church was not against slavery as a whole as an absolute principle, though it certainly took a radically different view of it compared with the ancient world from the very beginning, to which we can now credit the modern departure from a formerly ubiquitous practice. It’s somewhat like capital punishment. It’s a consequence of a fallen world but was legally permissible if considered strictly as a perpetual contract of service and ownership of labour, not reducing people to chattel or somehow justified by (anti-Christian) ideas of racial inferiority. The moral teaching developed: it’s now never condoned because it’s entirely unnecessary and is always abused.
 
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Petergee said:
I suppose in future centuries there will be an anti-Catholic myth that “in the early 21st century the Catholic Church tolerated contraception, divorce, abortion and homosexual sodomy”, because some (perhaps even most), (often nominal) “Catholics” at the time tolerated or even engaged in these things.
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Is it not true that the Catholic Church in the USA does tolerate civil divorce. For example, before you apply for an annulment, it is REQUIRED that you obtain a civil divorce, No? this is not an anti-Catholic myth, but is a requirement set forth by the Catholic marriage annulment tribunals, No?
 
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FiveLinden said:
Christopher Columbus
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What does Christopher Columbus have to do with slavery? He neither enslaved nor owned any slaves. He adopted a Taino son who later went to Spain to inherit 1/3rd of his property (along with his other 2 natural sons). Please study the topic before responding (and by that, I mean the original source material…not the op/ed commentary).
 
The history of Saint Peter Claver “The slave of the Negros forever” might shed some light. “Forever” - which seems to indicate that even from heaven, he is their slave, interceding constantly for them.

As to the usual gutter sniping in such threads, give it all due credit.
 
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