What was the justification that Roman Catholic priests used to sell their slaves? For example it was reported that in 1838, Jesuit priests sold 272 slaves, including a 2 month old baby and her mother and a 13 year old boy, Cornelius Hawkins.
There can be no justification.
Father Mulledy promised his superiors that the slaves would continue to practice their religion. Families would not be separated. And the money raised by the sale would not be used to pay off debt or for operating expenses.
None of those conditions were met, university officials said.
Father Mulledy took most of the down payment he received from the sale — about $500,000 in today’s dollars — and used it to help pay off the debts that Georgetown had incurred under his leadership.
In the uproar that followed, he was called to Rome and reassigned.
The next year, Pope Gregory XVI explicitly barred Catholics from engaging in “this traffic in Blacks … no matter what pretext or excuse.”
The colonial slave trade was directly condemned by popes of the Catholic Church as early as 1435. On January 13, 1435, Pope Eugene IV issued the bull
Sicut Duhum.
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 (servituri subicere). Pope Eugene IV,
Sicut Dudum, January 13, 1435
And subsequent to that by numerous other popes.
http://churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/slavery.pdf
What I make of it is the same thing I make of the number of lay and clerics who continue to flagrantly resist or contradict the teachings of the Church even in this day. We can here bring up issues such as abortion, same sex marriage, contraception and various other moral and theological positions where Catholics, including lay, priests, bishops and cardinals disregard or oppose Church teaching.
Merely because there are clerics – priests, bishops and cardinals included – who act or teach what is contrary to the Church does not mean these individuals represent the Church that Christ founded.
We could also bring up here people like Cardinal McCarrick,
Monsignor Walter Rossi, Monsignor Tommaso Stenico, among others, who behave in ways contrary to Church teaching. That does not invalidate what has been defined Church teaching, nor does it impugn the entire Church. The Church is made up on autonomous individuals, not automatons. These individuals will each be held accountable for their behavior.
