Is slavery in itself okay?

[AngryAtheist8]

Dear LittleSoldier,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou for your post addressed to me, much of which I actually concur with. Please be assured, I do understand your arguments above, but I just do not think that they are taking sufficiently into account the unique situation which existed in the early days of Christianity in pagan Rome.

In the case of slavery you have something that was so much a part of the social system of pagan Rome that any change could only by the very nature of things be effected gradually by the slow, leavening power of Christianity. But for St. Paul to say “there is neither bond nor free…for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3: 28), was a giant step in the right direction, without loudly proclaiming emancipation from the rooftops. You are quite right, abortion is an instrinsic evil that has always been condemned by the Church, but then, so has slavery, except during the very early days of Christianity when to do so would have been imprudent, if not downright dangerous. Moreover, abortion, unlike slavery, was never an integral part of the social fabric, so I do not believe they are exactly parallel, save in so far as they are both intrinsically evil.

The N.T. is not concerned with any political/social institutions, for these belong to particular nations and particular phases of society. Whatever, is done by the Christian religion will be done for the entire of mankind and for all time. Thus if it be necessary for the eternal purpose of the Gospel, then St. Paul will submit to all the injustice of pagan governments, including slavery. Moreover, if it be necessary for the same purpose, the slave of a pagan master will patiently remain a slave and realistically accept that fundamental changes will not, and indeed cannot, occur overninght. No one is saying that this is easy for the slave, but it is part and parcel of living in a sinful world where wrongs cannot always be remedied in an instant, for various reasons.

Our Lord and His Apostles did not say anything against the evil powers or institutions of the ancient world. Their attitude towards them all was that of deep spiritual hostility and entire political submission. Now had this submission, which may appear nothing short of inexcusable inaction from our standpoint in the 21st. cent, not been preached by them, and enforced by example, the nacsent religion would surely have been strangled at birth. Why? because a religious movement would have been transformed into a political movement and then the Roman Empire would have crushed it with its mighty power. To support it against the Roman legions with legions of angels was simply not a part of the plan of the Divine Providence, as history attests.

Therefore, within the context of the first century of the Christian era, St. Paul and the other Apostles had, by the very nature of the existing social system, to desist from any vociferous condemnation of slavery, for the sake of the welfare of the fledgling Church. Thus it was not so much and issue of societies collapsing, more of the Christian society being obliterated by the Roman, who would not tolerate what he conceived as any insurrection against the SPQR. As the old adage goes, ‘Discretion is the best part of valour’. However, the principles of the Gospel of Christ were mighty to the pulling down of strongholds and wheels were set in motion that would at length lead to the abolition of slavery within a relatively short space of time.

God bless, Little Soldier, and thankyou for taking the time to respond to my posts. My sincere apologies again for any offence which my posts have occasioned.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

A message contradicted (if not completely diluted or obliterated) by what Saint Paul said when addressing women or slaves

 

[LittleSoldier]

Dear LittleSoldier,

Cordial greetings and hello again. Sorry to hear that you are feeling dazed on account of your medication and I do hope things will improve for you as the day progresses. Please be assured of my prayers.

I do understand that my usage of the word ‘jolly’ can be quite confusing to those overseas! Yes, of course I forgive you and jolly decent of you to apologise. Thankyou.

Now let me answer your question, LittleSoldier. Here in England the term ‘jolly’ also means cheerful and good-humoured. However, it can also be used in a colloquial sense to mean ‘very’ and that is how I intended it to be understood in my post. Thus, when I said, “…an all out and out unsparing attack upon slavery by the leaders of religion…would have been jolly imprudent at that time”, I simply meant by the word ‘jolly’, very imprudent at that time. Nevertheless, upon reflection it was probably a poor choice of word, given the serious nature of the subject matter in which it occured. Therefore, I tender my apologies if it introduced a note of flippancy into my argument, for such was clearly not my intention.

You may be interested to know that the word ‘jolly’ in traditional English usage was frequently used as an expression of hearty approval, especially among those associated with the upper eschelons of society and the ‘Old School Tie Brigade’ (that is, men from a privelliged public school background). These sort of fellows could often be heard saying things like, “Jolly good show, old chap”, to show their approval of, for example, a job well done by someone. Now, I must confess, I do use an adaptation of this lovely quaint phrase here at CAF sometimes when I think a contributor has written a, well, jolly good post with which I heartily concur. Moreover, as I understand it the phrase was also used widely in the Second World War by officers in the armed Forces, especially by those serving in the Royal Air Force. BTW, they would often address a man as “old chap” or “old boy”, which it had nothing to do with the age of the person so addressed, but was just the ‘Hooray Henry’ type speak of upper class Englishmen in those times. Unfortunately, in our eglatarian age these chaps have been given a very bad press and are often held up to derision as spoilt and ineffectual young men who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. This may have been true in some cases, but it was certainly not true generally. For example, many Royal Air Force officers in WWII were very heroic men, who often ended up in prisoner of war camps for the duration of the war, such as the infamous Colditz, unless they escaped.

LittleSoldier, I must leave it there, but I do hope you found the above jolly interesting and helpful.

God bless.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait:tiphat:

Pax

Thank you, Portrait. You explained it jolly well. I would be proud if you would again refer to me as your friend. I’m finding that we agree on more than I thought and I think that in the past I have been somewhat uncharitable (actually that is not quite true and I loathe lies so I will just come out and say I have been uncharitable to you and I am very, very sorry and ashamed of what I have said). I admit I have a problem with “British” English as it sounds stilted to me (even the word “whilst”) and where I come from (California) we have the reputation of drawling, slow, lazy speech with a few rather bizarre phrases (my favorite is “'till the cows come home”).

I am sick today. I became sicker yesterday as the day progressed. I still promise to respond to your other post. If I don’t get better by tomorrow I’ll respond anyway and do the best I can.

God’s peace and joy be with you!

 

[Portrait]

Thank you, Portrait. You explained it jolly well. I would be proud if you would again refer to me as your friend. I’m finding that we agree on more than I thought and I think that in the past I have been somewhat uncharitable (actually that is not quite true and I loathe lies so I will just come out and say I have been uncharitable to you and I am very, very sorry and ashamed of what I have said). I admit I have a problem with “British” English as it sounds stilted to me (even the word “whilst”) and where I come from (California) we have the reputation of drawling, slow, lazy speech with a few rather bizarre phrases (my favorite is “'till the cows come home”).

I am sick today. I became sicker yesterday as the day progressed. I still promise to respond to your other post. If I don’t get better by tomorrow I’ll respond anyway and do the best I can.

God’s peace and joy be with you!

Dear LittleSoldier,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou kindly for your warm-hearted post above, I am very moved. The cold medium of the the interweb just cannot convey how much your post means to me and I am very happy that there is no ill-feeling between us. LittleSoldier, it will by my pleasure to resume addressing you as dear friend.

Sorry to hear that you are unwell, my wife and I will continue to remember you in our prayers, dear friend. Trust that you will feel a little better today, or at least during Easter.

As regards your response to my other post, there is no urgency, deal with that one when you feel able to. LittleSoldier, I will be taking a breather from CAF over the Easter, so please get well soon, dear friend. Goodbye for now.

Easter blessings be upon you and may the peace of God be yours now and always.

Warmest good wishes and prayers,

Portrait:tiphat:

Pax

 

[UnusVeritas]

And I think that will do for now . There are tons of other popes, saints, fathers and theologians who opposed slavery but I just don’t have the time to speak about them

Thanks a lot for the quotes! That’s the best answer on here IMHO.

 

[Portrait]

In other words, Saint Paul essentially condoned slavery:shrug:

Dear friend,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou for your response.

Whilst I can appreciate how it may seem to you, I really do feel that you are failing to take into account the historical situation in which St. Paul and the other Apostles found themselves. To have clamoured for manumission would have been to have preached revolutionary doctrine and would have only served to evoke unwanted hostility and persecution against the nascent Church. It is surely important, dear friend, if we are not to do a great diservice to St. Paul, to step into his shoes and view the volotile contemporary scene of the first century from his prepective and not ours in the 21st century. He surely had no choice, given that slavery was so much a part of the social fabric; he and all the apostles had to be governed by expediency as well as truth - discretion is the best part of valour, after all.

However, It is simply not true to say that St. Paul “essentially condoned slavery”, for had he done so, then his radical new principles, which revolutionised thinking upon the topic, would have been superfluous and he would have contented himself with the status quo. This he did not do.

Deep changes were made by the Gospel as regards the outlook of masters and slaves alike. Where both were professing Christians, the reciprocal duties could now be performed as between conscious members of Christ. The slaves were to obey fully obey and render service as if they were in an ordinary contract of employment, not in a slovenly manner or to their masters loss, but with a will and with a single eye serving Christ, their true Master, from whom they would not fail to receive a reward (please see Ephesians 6: 5-8; Colossians 3: 22-25). The same sort of spirit should guide their masters. The slaves had rights, irrespective of what pagan Rome might think, and accordingly they must be treated with justice and certainly equity. To tryrannize with fierce threats and the like was to forget that both master and slave had the same Master above, who was no respecter of persons (see Eph. 6: 9; Col. 3: 25; 4: 1).

This sort of thing, my dear friend, was simply unheard of in the pagan world of that age. This whole new bond between them was but the minimum for Christian brethren. Indeed, the genorosity possible in a Christian towards a theiving, runaway slave is outlined in the delicate and warm-hearted appeal which St. Paul addressed to Philemon.

No, there may not have been an immediate campaign for abolition, but the slow, leavening power of St. Paul’s radical new thinking, undeniably, set the wheels in motion, that would eventually lead to the abolition of the odious business of slavery.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[Portrait]

A message contradicted (if not completely diluted or obliterated) by what Saint Paul said when addressing women or slaves

Dear friend,

Hello again.

Forgive me, dear friend, but I am not quite certain as to your precise meaning as regards the above remark. Can you kindly elaborate please?

What I can say, however, is that the N.T. throughout emphasizes the dignity of womanhood, and it is an indiputable fact that the example and teaching of Christ have lifted women in one country and society after another to a position that they did not occupy previously. Whereas in many of the world religions, not least in Judaism and Islam, women have a more inferior place than men, Christianity emphasizes that men and women alike have a perfect spiritual equality (Gal. 3: 28).

Surely, with the advent of the Gospel the status of both slaves and women were actually raised considerably, and that at a time when this was simply not the norm. Jolly radical stuff, I say.

This will be my final post this side of Easter, dear friend, but may I wish you and all other contributors to this current thead a very blessed and restful Easter. God bless and goodbye for now.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait:tiphat:

Pax

 

[aragonjohn1]

Only if the slave is treated with dignity see the This rock tract did the catholic church condone slavery.

 

[Ron_Conte]

It depends on how you define slavery. If you use the term slavery broadly, to include indentured servitude and requiring criminals to work, then you could not say that slavery was intrinsically evil (in itself immoral). For you would have defined the term so as to be, in some cases, not inherently immoral. Indentured servitude was a necessary, though imperfect, social form, especially in ancient times.

However, if you define slavery narrowly, so as to include only those types of acts that deprive the human person of his or her fundamental human rights, then slavery is intrinsically evil; it is the type of act that is immoral, in and of itself. In this definition, the moral object of slavery would be the deprivation of fundamental human rights from the human person.

The Church has permitted indentured servitude, as not inherently immoral. But the Magisterium has long condemned the severe form of slavery, which is slavery narrowly defined, and which excludes moderate forms such as indentured servitude or requiring convicted criminals to work.

Pope Leo XIII: “This zeal of the Church for liberating the slaves has not languished with the passage of time; on the contrary, the more it bore fruit, the more eagerly it glowed. There are incontestable historical documents which attest to that fact, documents which commended to posterity the names of many of Our predecessors. Among them Saint Gregory the Great, Hadrian I, Alexander III, Innocent III, Gregory IX, Pius II, Leo X, Paul III, Urban VIII, Benedict XIV, Pius VII, and Gregory XVI stand out. They applied every effort to eliminate the institution of slavery wherever it existed. They also took care lest the seeds of slavery return to those places from which this evil institution had been cut away.” (Pope Leo XIII, Catholicae Ecclesiae, Encyclical on Slavery in the Missions, n. 1.)

However, this type of unequivocal condemnation of slavery was only applied to the narrow form of slavery. Pope Pius X refers to slavery in the narrow sense as “slavery, properly so called.” He thereby excludes such forms as indentured servitude, and various other degrees of subjection and servitude.

Pope Pius X: “It is true that soon afterwards the worst of these indignities that is to say, slavery, properly so called – was, by the goodness of the merciful God, abolished; and to this public abolition of slavery in Brazil and in other regions the excellent men who governed those Republics were greatly moved and encouraged by the maternal care and insistence of the Church.” (Pope Pius X, Lacrimabili Statu, Encyclical on the Indians of South America to the Archbishops and Bishops of Latin America, n. 1.)

 

[AngryAtheist8]

It depends on how you define slavery. If you use the term slavery broadly, to include indentured servitude and requiring criminals to work, then you could not say that slavery was intrinsically evil (in itself immoral). For you would have defined the term so as to be, in some cases, not inherently immoral. Indentured servitude was a necessary, though imperfect, social form, especially in ancient times.

However, if you define slavery narrowly, so as to include only those types of acts that deprive the human person of his or her fundamental human rights, then slavery is intrinsically evil; it is the type of act that is immoral, in and of itself. In this definition, the moral object of slavery would be the deprivation of fundamental human rights from the human person.

The Church has permitted indentured servitude, as not inherently immoral. But the Magisterium has long condemned the severe form of slavery, which is slavery narrowly defined, and which excludes moderate forms such as indentured servitude or requiring convicted criminals to work.

Pope Leo XIII: “This zeal of the Church for liberating the slaves has not languished with the passage of time; on the contrary, the more it bore fruit, the more eagerly it glowed. There are incontestable historical documents which attest to that fact, documents which commended to posterity the names of many of Our predecessors. Among them Saint Gregory the Great, Hadrian I, Alexander III, Innocent III, Gregory IX, Pius II, Leo X, Paul III, Urban VIII, Benedict XIV, Pius VII, and Gregory XVI stand out. They applied every effort to eliminate the institution of slavery wherever it existed. They also took care lest the seeds of slavery return to those places from which this evil institution had been cut away.” (Pope Leo XIII, Catholicae Ecclesiae, Encyclical on Slavery in the Missions, n. 1.)

However, this type of unequivocal condemnation of slavery was only applied to the narrow form of slavery. Pope Pius X refers to slavery in the narrow sense as “slavery, properly so called.” He thereby excludes such forms as indentured servitude, and various other degrees of subjection and servitude.

Pope Pius X: “It is true that soon afterwards the worst of these indignities that is to say, slavery, properly so called – was, by the goodness of the merciful God, abolished; and to this public abolition of slavery in Brazil and in other regions the excellent men who governed those Republics were greatly moved and encouraged by the maternal care and insistence of the Church.” (Pope Pius X, Lacrimabili Statu, Encyclical on the Indians of South America to the Archbishops and Bishops of Latin America, n. 1.)

I wonder how many of the Popes owned slaves?

 

[aragonjohn1]

I wonder how many of the Popes owned slaves?

None that are mentioned in any historical records

"When did the Catholic Church condemn slavery? According to some notable figures, the Church did not finally condemn slavery until recently.
Judge John T. Noonan stated that it was not until 1890 that the Church condemned the institution of slavery, lagging behind laws enacted to outlaw the practice. He and others argue that slavery is one of the areas in which the Church has changed its moral teaching to suit the times, and that the time for this change did not come until near the end of the last century.

Theologian Laennec Hurbon may be cited as representing a belief among many authors that no Pope before 1890 condemned slavery when he stated that, “. . . one can search in vain through the interventions of the Holy See—those of Pius V, Urban VIII and Benedict XIV—for any condemnation of the actual principle of slavery.”

Author John F. Maxwell wrote in his 1975 work on slavery that the Church did not correct its teaching on the moral legitimacy of slavery until 1965, with the publication, from the Second Vatican Council, of (The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World).

There existed, of course, the practice of various types of slavery before the 15th century. However, it was not until the 15th century, and with growing frequency from the 16th to the 19th centuries, that racial slavery as we know it became a major problem. It is this form of servitude that is called to mind when we think today of the institution of slavery, and is the type which was to prevail in parts of the New World for over four centuries.

This brings us back to our initial question: When did the Church condemn this slavery? If it was not until 1890, or even 1965, then a great shadow has indeed been cast upon the Magisterium. If, however, it can be shown that the Magisterium condemned from the beginning the colonial slavery that developed in the newly discovered lands, then it may be necessary for some historians and others to revise their opinions of that teaching office, and of the Catholic Church as well.

From 1435 to 1890, we have numerous bulls and encyclicals from several popes written to many bishops and the whole Christian faithful condemning both slavery and the slave trade. The very existence of these many papal teachings during this particular period of history is a strong indication that from the viewpoint of the Magisterium, there must have developed a moral problem of a different sort than any previously encountered. In this article I will address three—from many more—of the responses of the papal Magisterium to the widespread enslavement that accompanied the Age of Discovery and beyond.

Eugene IV: , 1435

On January 13, 1435, 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:

“They have deprived the natives of their property or turned it to their own use, and have subjected some of the inhabitants of said islands to perpetual slavery (), sold them to other persons and committed other various illicit and evil deeds against them… Therefore We … exhort, through the sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ shed for their sins, one and all, temporal princes, lords, captains, armed men, barons, soldiers, nobles, communities and all others of every kind among the Christian faithful of whatever state, grade or condition, that they themselves desist from the aforementioned deeds, cause those subject to them to desist from them, and restrain them rigorously. And no less do We order and command all and each of the faithful of each sex that, within the space of fifteen days of the publication of these letters in the place where they live, that they restore to their pristine liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of said 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.”

The date of this Bull, 1435, is very significant. Nearly 60 years before the Europeans were to find the New World, we already had the papal condemnation of slavery as soon as this crime was discovered in one of the first of the Portuguese geographical discoveries.

Eugene IV was clear in his intentions both to condemn the enslavement of the residents of the Canary Islands, and to demand correction of the injustice within 15 days. Those who did not restore the enslaved to their liberty in that time were to incur the sentence of excommunication ipso facto.

With , Eugene was clearly intending to condemn the enslavement of the people of the Canaries and, in no uncertain terms, to inform the faithful that what was being condemned was what we would classify as gravely wrong. Thus, the unjust slavery that had begun in the newly found territories was condemned, condemned as soon as it was discovered, and condemned in the strongest of terms."

• ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/POPSLAVE.HTM

Shalom

 

[livingwordunity]

Well I’m not sure this argument holds anything because if you just have a job you do have the choice of leaving, even if you don’t find it practical. The choice exists. For a slave it wouldn’t.

In the military, there is no choice of leaving. If you leave they will hunt you down for AWOL or desertion and punish you when they find you.