Did Catholics justify racism and slavery?

[angell1]

i know the church itself is not racist and does not condone slavery, but in the past there was not as much outspoken as today.

even priests and nuns and many other cahtolics had racist tendencies. seminaries in america wouldn’t accept blacks, they were often segragated in a parish or had their own parishes. priests and nuns and other cathoics also bought and sold slaves, and i don’t mean just form of slavery either. even spanish and portuguese colonialist went to africa and brought all the slaves here, sanctioned by the pope at one point. those were catohic countries too

how on earth did they think this was ok?

also, the residential school issue keeps coming up and i don’t know what to say about it. i think the media has blown a lot of it out of proporiton but everyone believes that the cahtolic church basically tried to force first nations to be christians and abused and killed many of them in the schools.

are there any first nations catholics or african american catohlics on these forums. is so, can i get some (name removed by moderator)ut on how you feel about these issues?

 

[livingwordunity]

Question: “How did catholics justify racism and slavery?”
Answer: If they did it was the same way many Catholics justify voting for abortion. They ignore what the Church has to say.

Whether or not there can be improprieties found in an individual Catholic in history, the Catholic Church has been a pioneer against slavery from the beginning and of mankind’s whole expedition to the New World. For example:We order and command 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 said Canary Islands, and made captives since the time of their capture, and 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 money. If this is not done when the fifteen days have passed, they incur the sentence of excommunication by the act itself, from which they cannot be absolved, except at the point of death, even by the Holy See, or by any Spanish bishop, or by the aforementioned Ferdinand, unless they have first given freedom to these captive persons and restored their goods. We will that like sentence of excommunication be incurred by one and all who attempt to capture, sell, or subject to slavery, baptized residents of the Canary Islands, or those who are freely seeking Baptism, from which excommunication cannot be absolved except as was stated above.
(Sicut Dudum, Pope Eugene IV Against the Enslaving of Black Natives from the Canary Islands, January 13, 1435)

[T]he said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved. (Pope Paul III, Sublimus Dei, On the enslavement and evangelization of Indians, 1537)

We warn and adjure earnestly in the Lord faithful Christians of every condition that no one in the future dare to vex anyone, despoil him of his possessions, reduce to servitude, or lend aid and favour to those who give themselves up to these practices, or exercise that inhuman traffic by which the Blacks, as if they were not men but rather animals, having been brought into servitude, in no matter what way, are, without any distinction, in contempt of the rights of justice and humanity, bought, sold, and devoted sometimes to the hardest labour. (Pope Gregory XVI, In Supremo Apostolatus, Apostolic Letter condemning the slave trade, 1839)That’s just a sampling. Some of the above mention other letters of their predecessors echoing the same tradition. Click the links for more.

Papal condemnations of slavery were repeated by Popes Gregory XIV (1591), Urban VIII (1639), Innocent XI (1686), Benedict XIV (1741), and Pius VII (1815). In 1839, Pope Gregory XVI and Pope Leo XIII (1890) both wrote condemning slavery, as did the Second Vatican Council (1965).

Sources:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11441305&postcount=3
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=7832413&postcount=42

 

[edwest2]

i know the church itself is not racist and does not condone slavery, but in the past there was not as much outspoken as today.

even priests and nuns and many other cahtolics had racist tendencies. seminaries in america wouldn’t accept blacks, they were often segragated in a parish or had their own parishes. priests and nuns and other cathoics also bought and sold slaves, and i don’t mean just form of slavery either. even spanish and portuguese colonialist went to africa and brought all the slaves here, sanctioned by the pope at one point. those were catohic countries too

how on earth did they think this was ok?

also, the residential school issue keeps coming up and i don’t know what to say about it. i think the media has blown a lot of it out of proporiton but everyone believes that the cahtolic church basically tried to force first nations to be christians and abused and killed many of them in the schools.

are there any first nations catholics or african american catohlics on these forums. is so, can i get some (name removed by moderator)ut on how you feel about these issues?

First, can you provide any sources for this?

amazon.com/Black-Catholic-Jim-Crow-South/dp/0809143712/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

amazon.com/Black-White-Catholic-Interracialism-1947-1956/dp/0826514847

Peace,
Ed

 

[johnmann]

There are lots of ways I can think of that one can try to justify slavery. E.g., they’re like adopted children. As for racial discrimination, believe it or not, it still exists today though it goes largely unspoken. I know some who aren’t particularly welcoming of Hispanics to their parish. It’s justified on the same grounds that hostility towards them in civil society is justified. E.g., they’re changing the culture we’ve maintained for generations, consuming limited resources, not contributing proportionally, and they can live among themselves so why do they have to bother us?

In the end, it’s due to people placing their own interests before divine commandments and lying to themselves that there’s no conflict. Think about any persistent sin people commit. They may be seemingly devout Catholics but the just don’t consider what they’re doing to be sinful.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

i know the church itself is not racist and does not condone slavery, but in the past there was not as much outspoken as today.

even priests and nuns and many other cahtolics had racist tendencies. seminaries in america wouldn’t accept blacks, they were often segragated in a parish or had their own parishes. priests and nuns and other cathoics also bought and sold slaves, and i don’t mean just form of slavery either. even spanish and portuguese colonialist went to africa and brought all the slaves here, sanctioned by the pope at one point. those were catohic countries too

how on earth did they think this was ok?

also, the residential school issue keeps coming up and i don’t know what to say about it. i think the media has blown a lot of it out of proporiton but everyone believes that the cahtolic church basically tried to force first nations to be christians and abused and killed many of them in the schools.

are there any first nations catholics or african american catohlics on these forums. is so, can i get some (name removed by moderator)ut on how you feel about these issues?

First, posts 2 & 4 below show that the Church herself was always against racism and slavery. However, individual Catholics, are sinners and just as big sinners as anyone else. Being Catholic is not a " magic bullet. " Catholics, like everyone else, are, to a large extent, " children " of the surrounding culture. Only Saints are truly counter cultural, just look at the number of Catholics today who support, take part in the pro-death, contraceptive culture. Even priest, Bishops, and religious are not immune from infection by the surrounding culture. I think that explains it.

Look at your own life, how infected are you by the surrounding culture?

Linus2nd

 

[glendab]

We didn’t.

Keep this in mind…though He was the Son of God, He took the form of a slave being born in the likeness of men…

Glenda

 

[Nacho45]

**We didn’t. **

Keep this in mind…though He was the Son of God, He took the form of a slave being born in the likeness of men…

Glenda

Exactly! This is yet another in a long line of verbal assault tactics against Christianity. People have unwittingly fallen prey to this attack simply by it being repeated so often so that it becomes part of our subconscious thought. The Church has always been surrounded by the secular culture of mankind. Even when the Church was at the peak of its earthly political power, it was not so powerful as to stomp out the secular powers of man in a political fashion.

Within the Holy Scriptures are contained guidelines for treating people who are already confined within cultural slavery, which by the way, is not what we think of today as slavery. It was to have Christians treat them with some dignity and respect, especially since many of them were Christian.

The allegation of racism is simply outrageous and has no semblance of reality whatsoever. Even in the early centuries of the Church, there were various ethnic peoples involved in its development and protection which continues through modern times.

 

[robwar]

i know the church itself is not racist and does not condone slavery, but in the past there was not as much outspoken as today.

even priests and nuns and many other cahtolics had racist tendencies. seminaries in america wouldn’t accept blacks, they were often segragated in a parish or had their own parishes. priests and nuns and other cathoics also bought and sold slaves, and i don’t mean just form of slavery either. even spanish and portuguese colonialist went to africa and brought all the slaves here, sanctioned by the pope at one point. those were catohic countries too

how on earth did they think this was ok?

also, the residential school issue keeps coming up and i don’t know what to say about it. i think the media has blown a lot of it out of proporiton but everyone believes that the cahtolic church basically tried to force first nations to be christians and abused and killed many of them in the schools.

are there any first nations catholics or african american catohlics on these forums. is so, can i get some (name removed by moderator)ut on how you feel about these issues?

You have made some blanket generalizations that are not supported anywhere. Look at the links provided by some of the other posters and you will see that the Catholic Church never supported slavery and racism. The abolitionist movement before the US civil war had many Catholics in it and many bishops spoke out against slavery even though the Catholic population was a minority back then. Stop using anti-Catholic bias and generalization and if going to make some of the statements you have made, back them up with real facts which are hard to find because they don’t exist.

 

[hadulzo]

You have made some blanket generalizations that are not supported anywhere. Look at the links provided by some of the other posters and you will see that the Catholic Church never supported slavery and racism. The abolitionist movement before the US civil war had many Catholics in it and many bishops spoke out against slavery even though the Catholic population was a minority back then. Stop using antin-Catholic bias and generalization and if going to make some of the statements you have made, back them up with real facts which are hard to find because they don’t exist.

Based on Augustus Tolton alone, , a blanket statement wouldn’t apply. Also remember we are a church of sinners.

 

[George_Stegmeir]

I grew up in South Florida in the 1940’s, during the segregation era. I attended Gesu School in downtown Miami. It was the Parish School for the Jesuit Church in Miam.
One of the Jesuit Priests who lived in our Rectory, was the Pastor of Catholic Church in the downtown Negro neighborhood, known as Liberty City, or colloquially as “Colored Town” in the idiom of that time. Because of the segregation laws of that day, he could not reside in that neighborhood, and after 7 P.M. if one was in need of him after that time, he had to call for a police escort, because it was against the law for whites to be in that area after dark, just as it was for blacks to be in white neighborhoods after the curfew hour.
However, although all schools were segregated, I distinctly remember having Latino classmates that were clearly light-skinned mulatoes. And, Gesu School was the first school in Florida that integrated, and that was in the 1950’s.
During the Civil Rights movement in the turbulent 1960’s, Catholic Churches throughout the South were the first Church Congregations to be integrated, in fact- if memory serves me correctly, I believe the Diocese of New Orleans was the first to integrate its congregations.

 

[robwar]

Based on Augustus Tolton alone, , a blanket statement wouldn’t apply. Also remember we are a church of sinners.

I understand that but, Op made broad and sweeping statements that the Catholic church supported or implied so support of slavery and racism. Racisim is trickier because standards and ideas have changed drastically over time. What might be considered racism by today’s standards and ideas might not have been considered racist 50+ years ago. The problem is trying to judge the past by using todays social norms. The comment about slavery was just so sweeping and false. There have been so many statements against slavery by Popes and bishops that to make some kind of blanket statement is totally wrong. Yes, there have been Catholics involved in both but that does not mean that the Church supported these things in any official manner and in fact the Catholic church is and was a leader against these things. Slavery in the Americas was a Protestant import brought over by the biggest slave traders of all, the Muslims of the barbary coast. Yet, the Catholic Church still is getting blamed for things that were never supported while slavery is still being practiced in Islamic countries (even if it is officially banned).