Slavery and the Catholic Church

[oldcatholicguy]

There were lands and peoples discovered off the western coast of Arfrica prior to Dum Diversas. Also Dum Diversas was used as a justification for the subjugation of people in the New World when that was later discovered.

So I’ll ask again, did Dum Diversas limit the Protuguese and the Spanish just to those they were at war with? It’s clear that it’s not.

-The fact you had to refer to those lands as “off the western coast of Africa” instead of “off the eastern coast of the Americas” should give you some indication that they weren’t in fact part of the New World.
-Used to justify and written with the intent to justify future enslavement of unknown peoples are two different things (especially since the thinking of the time was that there was no New World- Columbus set off to discover a shorter sea route to eastern Asia, not the New World).

 

[JM3]

I’ll quote again the most pertinent passage in Dum Diversas, highlight points that you have overlooked:

"We grant you [Kings of Spain and Portugal] by these present documents, with our Apostolic Authority, full and free permission to invade, search out, capture

After having found the Latin of Dum Diversas, I think the translations leave a lot to be desired.

“invadendi, conquirendi, expugnandi, debellandi, et subjugandi illorumque personas in perpetuam servitutem redigendi ac regna”

“enter, seek out, defeat, subdue and make subject, and their people in permanent service render and rule” (word for word, in order, translation)

I really don’t see anything about slavery here. Being subject to a king, yes, but not slavery, as you know it.

 

[Abu]

NekoNecro #4
Popes and groups of Bishops who continued to promote Slavery, right up till the end of the Papal States (another reason Italy invaded and took over Rome)
Mike from NJ #11
the Church had previously released Dum Diversas which outright allowed and encouraged non-Christians to be enslaved. The two papal bulls are diametrically opposed to each other.

As JM3 in #20, 22 has shown, both accusations are false.

In Ephesians 6:9 St Paul says:“Masters, do the same to them, and forbear threatening, knowing that He who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no, partiality with Him.” This equality before God encouraged the early Church to convert slaves – Pope Callistus (d. 236) had been a slave. With the demise of the Roman empire, the embrace of those in slavery continued and only ordination to the priesthood was denied.

Priests urged owners to free their slaves, and by the seventh century there was considerable evidence of unions of free men and female slaves. In 649 Clovis II, king of the Franks, married his British slave Clotilda. After his death, Clotilda campaigned to halt the slave trade and to redeem those in slavery. On her death she was declared a saint by the Church.

By the ninth century Charlemagne opposed slavery and the pope and many influential clerics strove for the freedom of slaves. During the eleventh century both St Wulfstan and St Anselm campaigned to remove the last vestiges of slavery from most of Christendom.” As the facts reveal slavery has always been condemned by the Popes, and with St Paul, the Church revolutionised the status of the slave from the first: (re Onesimus) “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. (Philemon 1:16).

As InvictusLux says:
Wednesday, May 2, 2012 A.D. at 9:53am
“In different times and places, slavery has taken on different forms. The type of slavery we most often think of and most readily condemn is called chattel slavery. This is the kind of slavery through which blacks were taken from Africa, packed into ships, and forced to work on plantations in the New World. A fair number of white Europeans, Asians, and indigenous peoples were also slaves or at least indentured servants. Black slaves were the worst off because of the spread of racist ideology.

"This kind of racist/chattel slavery has been explicitly condemned by the Church since it was first practiced in the middle of the 15th century. A series of Papal bulls forbade the expropriation and enslavement of indigenous peoples, and threatened with excommunication those who participated in them.

“The Church permitted and even endorsed the “ancient” kind of slavery, whereby prisoners of war were made slaves. The context is also important; in one Papal bull endorsing this kind of slavery, the context of unending war with Islamic pirates, who captured and enslaved thousands of innocent Christians year after year, is ever-present. The taking of Saracen prisoners of war as slaves was more of a retaliatory war effort than an official social institution.”
the-american-catholic.com/2012/04/30/slaverymeme/

Those who deny the reality of this fact and the Church’s early teaching against slavery simply deny the facts.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

After having found the Latin of Dum Diversas, I think the translations leave a lot to be desired.

“invadendi, conquirendi, expugnandi, debellandi, et subjugandi illorumque personas in perpetuam servitutem redigendi ac regna”

“enter, seek out, defeat, subdue and make subject, and their people in permanent service render and rule” (word for word, in order, translation)
I really don’t see anything about slavery here. Being subject to a king, yes, but not slavery, as you know it.

I found this site where a Catholic had a friend who is a professor of Latin translate Dum Diversas into English. The site owner stresses that this is a rough translation:

we grant to you full and free power, through the Apostolic authority by this edict, to invade, conquer, fight, subjugate the Saracens and pagans, and other infidels and other enemies of Christ, and wherever established their Kingdoms, Duchies, Royal Palaces, Principalities and other dominions, lands, places, estates, camps and any other possessions, mobile and immobile goods found in all these places and held in whatever name, and held and possessed by the same Saracens, Pagans, infidels, and the enemies of Christ, also realms, duchies, royal palaces, principalities and other dominions, lands, places, estates, camps, possessions of the king or prince or of the kings or princes, and to lead their persons in perpetual servitude, and to apply and appropriate realms, duchies, royal palaces, principalities and other dominions, possessions and goods of this kind to you and your use and your successors the Kings of Portugal.

But even if your translation is more accurate I think it’s highly optimistic to say that it doesn’t allow for the enslavement of the non-Christian peoples they encounter.

-The fact you had to refer to those lands as “off the western coast of Africa” instead of “off the eastern coast of the Americas” should give you some indication that they weren’t in fact part of the New World.

At one point it was common practice that a scientist who discovered a new element was given the right to name it. Later there was some controversy and it was determined that the names would be determined solely by their atomic numbers. After that there was a committee put in place that set certain ground rules and settled naming disputes. What I’m saying is that there were and are rules in place for discoveries before they’re even discovered.

Of course Dum Diversas doesn’t address the Americas. They weren’t discovered yet! But the papal bull put no spacial limit on its directive to Portugal. So long as pagans or Saraceans were involved it was Portugal’s for the taking. There was no chronological limit on its directive. Nothing in Dum Diversas says that they were to only subjugate others for X number of years. It clearly states that anything they take is for the King of Portugal and ALL of his successors.

Just because the Portugese and the Spanish weren’t yet aware of the Americas didn’t in any way limit the enslavers. It was justification pure and simple. It doesn’t matter if the pagans they encountered were in the Americas, in Oceania, or the lost city of Atlantis. If the people there were not Christians or not Jews then all they owned could be taken – person or item.

1. Dum Diversas gave authority to conquer the pagans.
2. Portugal and Spain did that in the Americas.
3. As far as I know, there was nothing from the Church which outright said that Portugal and Spain misinterpreted Dum Diversas to allow for slavery.

As I’ve said before and I’ll say again. There were many within the Church who wanted to abolish slavery in its entirety. Others – including some popes – did not. That is why I say the Church’s response to slavery was “mixed”

With the demise of the Roman empire, the embrace of those in slavery continued and only ordination to the priesthood was denied.

Don’t forget freedom

Priests urged owners to free their slaves,

Some priests did. Some popes did.

By the ninth century Charlemagne opposed slavery and the pope and many influential clerics strove for the freedom of slaves. During the eleventh century both St Wulfstan and St Anselm campaigned to remove the last vestiges of slavery from most of Christendom.”

You know what that is? A THOUSAND YEARS! Did it take the Church a thousand years to say it’s wrong to purposely starve your children? Did it take the Church a thousand years to say that injuring a rival is wrong?

As the facts reveal slavery has always been condemned by the Popes

“Always?” Really? We’re including Paul III who revoked the privelege of emanicapating slaves who fled to the Capital? We’re including Urban VIII who bought 40 slaves for the Papal Galley? We’re including Innocent VIII who divied up his 100 slave gift to his clergy?

Also, I’m more than willing to use the Bible to show that “just” slavery is as cruel as so-called “chattel slavery”. I was hoping to avoid that and focus solely on the Church’s actions, but if you want to discuss that we can.

Those who deny the reality of this fact and the Church’s early teaching against slavery simply deny the facts.

I’ve presented a great deal of facts which show that some people within the church had no trouble with the enslavement of non-Chirstians. Show me how there was no advocacy of slavery in the Church.

 

[Abu]

The absurdity of not recognizing the facts of Islamic terror and conquests is stark, and results in the persistent errors seen against the Popes and Christ’s Church in recognising this reality.

These comments are very relevant:
'It is also important to keep in mind that slavery was a major focus and intent of the Islamic depredations on Christianity. That all of what we think of as Islamic nations today were prior to the 7th century, part of Christendom, and that these lands had been pillaged, enslaved, and converted at the point of a sword by the followers of Mohammed. The Mohammedan threat against Europe continued until the victory of Jan Sobieski at the siege of Vienna in 1683.

'And if you think that perpetual servitude is a bit much, give it a decade or so and see what the “religion of peace” does to Europe in the coming years.

‘And, if anyone would further want to hold a religion hostage to ancient documents, please peruse the letters sent to the Holy Roman Emperor by Mehmet IV describing his intentions in bringing his forces against Vienna.’.
Paul
May 12, 2014 at 11:09 PM
unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/dum-diversas-english-translation.html

How true. We see daily the effects of Islamic bigots over Africa and the Middle East

 

[Abu]

How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and the Success of the West
RODNEY STARK
As the non-Catholic Rodney Stark attests from the beginning that St Paul explained: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor fee, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

'Through all prior recorded history, slavery was universal — Christianity began in a world where as much as half the population was in bondage. But by the seventh century, Christianity had become the only major world religion to formulate specific theological opposition to slavery, and, by no later than the 11th century, the church had expelled the dreadful institution from Europe. [My emphasis].

'While the other world religions emphasized mystery and intuition, Christianity alone embraced reason and logic as the primary guides to religious truth. Christian faith in reason was influenced by Greek philosophy. But the more important fact is that Greek philosophy had little impact on Greek religions. Those remained typical mystery cults, in which ambiguity and logical contradictions were taken as hallmarks of sacred origins. Similar assumptions concerning the fundamental inexplicability of the gods and the intellectual superiority of introspection dominated all of the other major world religions.

'But, from early days, the church fathers taught that reason was the supreme gift from God and the means to progressively increase understanding of Scripture and revelation. Consequently Christianity was oriented to the future, while the other major religions asserted the superiority of the past.

'Christian faith in reason and in progress was the foundation on which Western success was achieved. As the distinguished philosopher Alfred North Whitehead put it during one of his Lowell Lectures at Harvard in 1925, science arose only in Europe because only there did people think that science could be done and should be done, a faith “derivative from medieval theology.” ’
catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0109.html

Sir Arnold Lunn in his debate with Professor G G Coulton also attests to this fact:
“Christ had not condemned slavery, and St Paul had said, ‘Slaves obey your masters,’ and it was therefore inevitable that only experience could convince Christians that slavery was wholly incompatible with Christianity.” Is The Catholic Church Anti-Social, Burns Oates, 1946, p 187].

Readers should note that Alfred North Whitehead is another non- Catholic.

 

[_Abyssinia]

I know I’m going to get slammed as some sort of hater who just wants to say bad things about the Church saying but…Historically, the Catholic Church has been a major player in the slave trade, Augustine himself claimed it was instituted by God and many other Synods and councils over history came to the same conclusion. Have a read of this liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/Church&slavery.html . It lists several proclamations from Popes and groups of Bishops who continued to promote Slavery, right up till the end of the Papal States (another reason Italy invaded and took over Rome)

There were Popes that denounced slavery long before the Holy Office in 1886 came out with that comment on slavery so I am not 100% sure why they came out with that comment.

There are multiple condemnations of slavery which are not included in that article, such as:

As early as 873 A. D. (DS 668) Pope John VIII ( to the princes of Sardinia) taught: “There is one thing about which we should give you a paternal admonition, and unless you emend, you incur a great sin, and for this reason, you will not increase gain, as you hope, but guilt. . . . many in your area, being taken captive by pagans, are sold and are bought by your people and held under the yoke of slavery. It is evident that it is religious duty and holy, as becomes Christians, that when your people have bought them from the Greeks themselves, for the love of Christ they set them free, and receive gain not from men, but from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Hence we exhort you and in fatherly love command that when you redeem some captives from them, for the salvation of your soul, you let them go free.”

ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/SLAVERY.HTM

Sixty years before Columbus “discovered” the New World, Pope Eugene IV condemned the enslavement of peoples in the newly colonized Canary Islands. His bull Sicut Dudum (1435) rebuked European enslavers and commanded that “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 [the] 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.”

catholiceducation.org/articles/facts/fm0006.html

Pius condemned slavery of newly baptised Christians as a “great crime” in an address of 1462 to the local ruler of the Canary Islands.6] Pius instructed bishops to impose penalties on transgressors.7] Pius did not condemn the concept of trading in slaves, only the enslavement of the recently baptised, who represented a very small minority of those captured and taken to Portugal.8] Pope Urban VIII, in his bull dated 22 April 1639, described these grave warnings of Pius (7 October 1462, Apud Raynaldum in Annalibus Ecclesiasticis ad ann n.42) as relating to “neophytes”.9] According to British diplomatic papers, Pius’ letter was addressed to Bishop Rubeira and confirms Urban’s observation that the condemnation relates to new converts being enslaved.10]

1. Later bulls were to be issued by Pius II and Sixtus IV in defense of the residents of the Canary Islands, who were still being enslaved at the hands of the Christians. In the Annales Ecclesiastici (vol. 29, n. 42, 342 and vol. 29, n. 21, 575), we have the commentary of Baronius on these two bulls (no extant copy of the actual text of this section of Pius II’s Bull is known), both penalizing the Europeans who were leading the newly baptized into slavery.

churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/slavery.htm

Pope Paul III (1537) condemned slavery in the New World, saying, “the Indians and all other peoples … who shall hereafter come to the attention of Christians … are not to be deprived of their liberty and their possessions.”

fatherjoe.wordpress.com/instructions/other/popes-opposed-slavery-against-dissenters

The dating was not accurate on the website you linked regarding this.

 

[_Abyssinia]

I know I’m going to get slammed as some sort of hater who just wants to say bad things about the Church saying but…Historically, the Catholic Church has been a major player in the slave trade, Augustine himself claimed it was instituted by God and many other Synods and councils over history came to the same conclusion. Have a read of this liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/Church&slavery.html . It lists several proclamations from Popes and groups of Bishops who continued to promote Slavery, right up till the end of the Papal States (another reason Italy invaded and took over Rome)

There were Popes that denounced slavery long before the Holy Office in 1886 came out with that comment on slavery so I am not 100% sure why they came out with that comment.

There are multiple condemnations of slavery which are not included in that article, such as:

As early as 873 A. D. (DS 668) Pope John VIII ( to the princes of Sardinia) taught: “There is one thing about which we should give you a paternal admonition, and unless you emend, you incur a great sin, and for this reason, you will not increase gain, as you hope, but guilt. . . . many in your area, being taken captive by pagans, are sold and are bought by your people and held under the yoke of slavery. It is evident that it is religious duty and holy, as becomes Christians, that when your people have bought them from the Greeks themselves, for the love of Christ they set them free, and receive gain not from men, but from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Hence we exhort you and in fatherly love command that when you redeem some captives from them, for the salvation of your soul, you let them go free.”

ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/SLAVERY.HTM

Sixty years before Columbus “discovered” the New World, Pope Eugene IV condemned the enslavement of peoples in the newly colonized Canary Islands. His bull Sicut Dudum (1435) rebuked European enslavers and commanded that “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 [the] 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.”

catholiceducation.org/articles/facts/fm0006.html

Pius condemned slavery of newly baptised Christians as a “great crime” in an address of 1462 to the local ruler of the Canary Islands.6] Pius instructed bishops to impose penalties on transgressors.7] Pius did not condemn the concept of trading in slaves, only the enslavement of the recently baptised, who represented a very small minority of those captured and taken to Portugal.8] Pope Urban VIII, in his bull dated 22 April 1639, described these grave warnings of Pius (7 October 1462, Apud Raynaldum in Annalibus Ecclesiasticis ad ann n.42) as relating to “neophytes”.9] According to British diplomatic papers, Pius’ letter was addressed to Bishop Rubeira and confirms Urban’s observation that the condemnation relates to new converts being enslaved.10]

1. Later bulls were to be issued by Pius II and Sixtus IV in defense of the residents of the Canary Islands, who were still being enslaved at the hands of the Christians. In the Annales Ecclesiastici (vol. 29, n. 42, 342 and vol. 29, n. 21, 575), we have the commentary of Baronius on these two bulls (no extant copy of the actual text of this section of Pius II’s Bull is known), both penalizing the Europeans who were leading the newly baptized into slavery.

churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/slavery.htm

 

[_Abyssinia]

I know I’m going to get slammed as some sort of hater who just wants to say bad things about the Church saying but…Historically, the Catholic Church has been a major player in the slave trade, Augustine himself claimed it was instituted by God and many other Synods and councils over history came to the same conclusion. Have a read of this liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/Church&slavery.html . It lists several proclamations from Popes and groups of Bishops who continued to promote Slavery, right up till the end of the Papal States (another reason Italy invaded and took over Rome)

The website you linked says:

Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas on 18 June, 1452. It authorised (King) Alfonso V of Portugal to reduce any “Saracens (Muslims) and pagans and any other unbelievers to perpetual slavery.

Fr William G. Most wrote an article looking at a similar claim:

Against this background, we report that it is claimed that in 1454 Pope Nicholas V gave permission to Alfonso V of Portugal to enslave Saracens, and other “enemies of Christ.”

First, we have yet to see any documentation for this claim. Even if it be so, it as not a doctrinal teaching, but a practical action. Such an action could indeed imply a teaching in the mind of the one who acted, but it did not express any teaching. So we need to recall what was said above about divine Brinkmanship. Volume III, of Warren Carroll’s church history chronicles so many serious abuses of Popes in the middle ages. And we all know that Alexander VI had illegitimate children, and even officiated at marriage for them and even appointed an illegitimate son, Caesar, as a Cardinal! None of these abuses amounts to a teaching, but only to a very regrettable action.

Further we note that the alleged document allows slavery for Saracens. We need to remember also what was said above, that slavery is a bit less a penalty than life in a prison. And it may be earned by grave sin. Now the Saracens had been murdering all sorts of persons. Their religion was literally spread by the sword. Their sacred book, the Koran, says (cited from Bernard Palmer, Understanding the Islamic Explosion, Horizon House, 1980, pp. 36-37): “When ye encounter unbelievers, strike off their heads until ye have made a great slaughter among them, and bind them in bonds. . . .” They also believed that to fight in such a “Holy War” ensures immediate salvation, going to a sex paradise. Islamic people held Spain and Portugal for centuries, and got control of the area at first precisely by killing the “infidels”.

So since—if indeed the claim is true—Pope Nicholas V granted such an approval, it is evident he must have thought something substantially changed the case. For there was the much earlier prohibition of slavery by Pope John VIII in 873, in which he called it a grave sin. And Pope Paul III not long after 1454 (in 1537) ordered under automatic excommunication that slavery stop.

ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/SLAVERY.HTM

 

[_Abyssinia]

The following looks at Christianity from before the first century to the 15th century:

nagasawafamily.org/article-slavery-and-christianity-1st-to-15th-centuries.pdf

 

[JM3]

I found this site where a Catholic had a friend who is a professor of Latin translate Dum Diversas into English. The site owner stresses that this is a rough translation:

But even if your translation is more accurate I think it’s highly optimistic to say that it doesn’t allow for the enslavement of the non-Christian peoples they encounter.

It may be optimistic, but I would also think that it would be less than honest to isolate a part of the document from the purpose of the document and what was happening at the time of the document. I offer this for some perspective.

vincentbrownrebutted.wordpress.com/2011/07/30/vincent-brown-authored-a-provocative-anti-catholic-rant-in-the-irish-times-opinion-analysis-july-27th-2011/

In issuing the 1452 Bull to the King of Portugal to oppose the enemies of Christ, namely the Saracens; Pope Nicholas V was sounding a rallying call to vacillating Christian rulers to oppose the onward march of Islamic conquest. Christian Europe was in a state of crisis heightened by the cries for assistance coming from the fast fading Christian Byzantine Empire. During the spring and early summer of 1453 the armies of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II approached and laid siege to Constantinople which finally fell on 29th May 1453.This was a shattering event for Christian Kingdoms all over Europe. The Papal Bull of 1452 was more like a 15th century version of modern rules of engagement ; which outlined certain rules for a Just War against aggressor nations, including the treatment of prisoners and proposing an extended POW type status rather than the common secular alternative of summary execution on the battlefield. The term perpetual slavery is not an accurate translation of the ecclesiastical Latin phrase. It betrays a modern Anglo-American bias rather than reflecting the historical reality.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

At one point it was common practice that a scientist who discovered a new element was given the right to name it. Later there was some controversy and it was determined that the names would be determined solely by their atomic numbers. After that there was a committee put in place that set certain ground rules and settled naming disputes. What I’m saying is that there were and are rules in place for discoveries before they’re even discovered.

Of course Dum Diversas doesn’t address the Americas. They weren’t discovered yet! But the papal bull put no spacial limit on its directive to Portugal. So long as pagans or Saraceans were involved it was Portugal’s for the taking. There was no chronological limit on its directive. Nothing in Dum Diversas says that they were to only subjugate others for X number of years. It clearly states that anything they take is for the King of Portugal and ALL of his successors.

Just because the Portugese and the Spanish weren’t yet aware of the Americas didn’t in any way limit the enslavers. It was justification pure and simple. It doesn’t matter if the pagans they encountered were in the Americas, in Oceania, or the lost city of Atlantis. If the people there were not Christians or not Jews then all they owned could be taken – person or item.

1. Dum Diversas gave authority to conquer the pagans.
2. Portugal and Spain did that in the Americas.
3. As far as I know, there was nothing from the Church which outright said that Portugal and Spain misinterpreted Dum Diversas to allow for slavery.

As I’ve said before and I’ll say again. There were many within the Church who wanted to abolish slavery in its entirety. Others – including some popes – did not. That is why I say the Church’s response to slavery was “mixed”

Yes, and there were Papal Bulls that specifically addressed slavery (both for and against, but for this discussion I’m referring to those for it) in the New World and Spain and Portugal’s ability to engage in it in the New World. Your argument that the Church’s response was “mixed” is correct, you’re just not citing the correct supporting documents (which has the effect of letting people ignore the fact that your argument is correct).

 

[Abu]

Mike from NJ #24
There were many within the Church who wanted to abolish slavery in its entirety. Others – including some popes – did not.

The fact that the annihilation of Christians by Mohammed and the Muslim tyrants is omitted is a grave error by such a falsification, and the further grave falsifications are the facts that ‘the Magisterium condemned unjust enslavement early on, but it also recognized what is known as “just title slavery.” That included forced servitude of prisoners of war and criminals, and voluntary servitude of indentured servants.

That quote by JM3 in post #60 is further proof of the reality and need for the 1452 Bull:
“In issuing the 1452 Bull to the King of Portugal to oppose the enemies of Christ, namely the Saracens; Pope Nicholas V was sounding a rallying call to vacillating Christian rulers to oppose the onward march of Islamic conquest. Christian Europe was in a state of crisis heightened by the cries for assistance coming from the fast fading Christian Byzantine Empire. During the spring and early summer of 1453 the armies of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II approached and laid siege to Constantinople which finally fell on 29th May 1453.This was a shattering event for Christian Kingdoms all over Europe.”
tinyurl.com/q6rqxp4

 

[oldcatholicguy]

The fact that the annihilation of Christians by Mohammed and the Muslim tyrants is omitted is a grave error by such a falsification, and the further grave falsifications are the facts that ‘the Magisterium condemned unjust enslavement early on, but it also recognized what is known as “just title slavery.” That included forced servitude of prisoners of war and criminals, and voluntary servitude of indentured servants.

That quote by JM3 in post #60 is further proof of the reality and need for the 1452 Bull:
“In issuing the 1452 Bull to the King of Portugal to oppose the enemies of Christ, namely the Saracens; Pope Nicholas V was sounding a rallying call to vacillating Christian rulers to oppose the onward march of Islamic conquest. Christian Europe was in a state of crisis heightened by the cries for assistance coming from the fast fading Christian Byzantine Empire. During the spring and early summer of 1453 the armies of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II approached and laid siege to Constantinople which finally fell on 29th May 1453.This was a shattering event for Christian Kingdoms all over Europe.”
tinyurl.com/q6rqxp4

You do understand that those prisoners of war and criminals would be chained to galleys and forced to participate in naval engagements correct? Are you claiming that this is a just usage of those taken in battle or found guilty of a crime?

 

[dmar198]

You do understand that those prisoners of war and criminals would be chained to galleys and forced to participate in naval engagements correct? Are you claiming that this is a just usage of those taken in battle or found guilty of a crime?

It can’t be a just usage because the Church forbids it. That is called mistreatment of prisoners, and I don’t think you will find anything in the history of the Church where the mistreatment of prisoners is praised.

 

[Abu]

oldcatholicguy #33
You do understand that those prisoners of war and criminals would be chained to galleys and forced to participate in naval engagements….Are you claiming that this is a just usage of those taken in battle or found guilty of a crime?

The reality, as we have seen is that Dum Diversas was a real papal bull but it in no way is it a general endorsement of slavery. It is simply an authorization to the Spanish monarchy to engage the aggressor enemy of Christians in a “just war” and to take any survivors as prisoners and incarcerate them for life for their crimes against Christianity.

If a man can sell his own skills and services for a period, he can do so permanently. Also, his right to sell his own services can be taken away if he diminishes his own dignity by serious crime, and so loses his right to self-determination. This happens with murderers, who can justly be obligated to work for the State in slavery until their deaths. “Perpetual servitude” here, would seem equivalent to just servitude for a heinous crime – as with capital punishment for unprovoked and calculate murder, hardly unjust.

This repeats what Pope Innocent III and other popes expressed, while Pope Nicholas states clearly that this is a defensive and just war against people who are trying to destroy Catholic civilisation: “fidem ipsam defendere”.

The historical reality is of a weak, pre-Columbian, 15th century Christian kingdom like Portugal under constant attack from the Saracens.

**Romanus Pontifex **
There is little mention of slavery in this also, except for: “Thence also many Guineamen and other negroes, taken by force, and some by barter of unprohibited articles, or by other lawful contract of purchase, have been sent to the said kingdoms” and the same repetition of “perpetual servitude”.

In Romanus Pontifex, the same Nicholas V repeats Eugene IV and Martin V’s decrees on the subject, and Eugene IV said, wisely warning against atrocities: “some Christians (we speak of this with sorrow), with fictitious reasoning and seizing and opportunity, have approached said islands by ship, and with armed forces taken captive and even carried off to lands overseas very many persons of both sexes, taking advantage of their simplicity… They have deprived the natives of the 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,” (Sicut Dudum).

 

[oldcatholicguy]

The reality, as we have seen is that Dum Diversas was a real papal bull but it in no way is it a general endorsement of slavery. It is simply an authorization to the Spanish monarchy to engage the aggressor enemy of Christians in a “just war” and to take any survivors as prisoners and incarcerate them for life for their crimes against Christianity.

If a man can sell his own skills and services for a period, he can do so permanently. Also, his right to sell his own services can be taken away if he diminishes his own dignity by serious crime, and so loses his right to self-determination. This happens with murderers, who can justly be obligated to work for the State in slavery until their deaths. “Perpetual servitude” here, would seem equivalent to just servitude for a heinous crime – as with capital punishment for unprovoked and calculate murder, hardly unjust.

This repeats what Pope Innocent III and other popes expressed, while Pope Nicholas states clearly that this is a defensive and just war against people who are trying to destroy Catholic civilisation: “fidem ipsam defendere”.

The historical reality is of a weak, pre-Columbian, 15th century Christian kingdom like Portugal under constant attack from the Saracens.

Romanus Pontifex
There is little mention of slavery in this also, except for: “Thence also many Guineamen and other negroes, taken by force, and some by barter of unprohibited articles, or by other lawful contract of purchase, have been sent to the said kingdoms” and the same repetition of “perpetual servitude”.

In Romanus Pontifex, the same Nicholas V repeats Eugene IV and Martin V’s decrees on the subject, and Eugene IV said, wisely warning against atrocities: “some Christians (we speak of this with sorrow), with fictitious reasoning and seizing and opportunity, have approached said islands by ship, and with armed forces taken captive and even carried off to lands overseas very many persons of both sexes, taking advantage of their simplicity… They have deprived the natives of the 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,” (Sicut Dudum).

If you accuse others of a “grave error” of omission, ensure that your response doesn’t contain similar errors of omission or revisionism (one would conclude from both your comments that slavery within Christianity primarily dealt with those justly taken as prisoners of war or justly found guilty of a crime). Especially when the comment your response is based on- “There were many within the Church who wanted to abolish slavery in its entirety. Others – including some popes – did not.” is factually and historically correct.

 

[Abu]

oldcatholicguy #36
“There were many within the Church who wanted to abolish slavery in its entirety. Others – including some popes – did not.” is factually and historically correct.

False. The confusion of slavery with servitude is endemic with some.

The reality:
In fact Instructio Number 1293 signed by Bl Pius XI is in* Collectanea*, Vol. 1, pp. 715-720 and is an “Instructio” of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office on some disputed questions, including questions of “servitude,” issued in 1866.
The Instructio itself, right at the point at which it declares even “servitude itself considered in itself and all alone (per se et absolute), is by no means repugnant to the natural and divine law,” acknowledges that “the Roman Pontiffs have left nothing untried by which servitude be everywhere abolished among the nations.”
This SERVITUDE is of three kinds:
(a) penal servitude;
(b) indentured servitude; and
(c) the servitude of prisoners captured in just wars.
nationalreview.com/corner/67739/slavery-sodomy-sullivan/ramesh-ponnuru

Let My People Go
The Catholic Church and Slavery
By Mark Brumley
…“slavery” is the condition of involuntary servitude in which a human being is regarded as no more than the property of another, as being without basic human rights; in other words, as a thing rather than a person.

Under this definition, slavery is intrinsically evil, since no person may legitimately be reduced to the status of a mere thing or object and thus become capable of being the property of another person. This form of slavery can be called “chattel slavery”…

…However, there are circumstances in which a person can justly be compelled to servitude against his will. Prisoners of war or criminals, for example, can justly lose their circumstantial freedom and be forced into servitude, within certain limits. Moreover, people can also “sell” their labor for a period of time (indentured servitude)…
catholiceducation.org/articles/facts/fm0006.html

 

[oldcatholicguy]

False. The confusion of slavery with servitude is endemic with some.

The reality:
In fact Instructio Number 1293 signed by Bl Pius XI is in* Collectanea*, Vol. 1, pp. 715-720 and is an “Instructio” of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office on some disputed questions, including questions of “servitude,” issued in 1866.
The Instructio itself, right at the point at which it declares even “servitude itself considered in itself and all alone (per se et absolute), is by no means repugnant to the natural and divine law,” acknowledges that “the Roman Pontiffs have left nothing untried by which servitude be everywhere abolished among the nations.”
This SERVITUDE is of three kinds:
(a) penal servitude;
(b) indentured servitude; and
(c) the servitude of prisoners captured in just wars.
nationalreview.com/corner/67739/slavery-sodomy-sullivan/ramesh-ponnuru

Let My People Go
The Catholic Church and Slavery
By Mark Brumley
…“slavery” is the condition of involuntary servitude in which a human being is regarded as no more than the property of another, as being without basic human rights; in other words, as a thing rather than a person.

Under this definition, slavery is intrinsically evil, since no person may legitimately be reduced to the status of a mere thing or object and thus become capable of being the property of another person. This form of slavery can be called “chattel slavery”…

…However, there are circumstances in which a person can justly be compelled to servitude against his will. Prisoners of war or criminals, for example, can justly lose their circumstantial freedom and be forced into servitude, within certain limits. Moreover, people can also “sell” their labor for a period of time (indentured servitude)…
catholiceducation.org/articles/facts/fm0006.html

-Yes, but that doesn’t actually address the issue of Popes and the Church never supporting slavery. All you’ve provided is a definition. No actual support that the Church and/or various Popes didn’t support slavery.
-Second, your above provided doesn’t address practice of slavery in Anglo-Saxon England in which people were held as slaves (and treated as property given the numerous surviving wills, etc dealing with the transfer of lands and slaves from one owner to another) despite not being a POW, and not being a justly punished criminal, and not being an indentured servant (children of slaves weren’t born as freemen and then later on entered into indentured servitude, they were born as slaves). It doesn’t even begin to address the far less free version of this type of slavery found under feudalism (serfdom).
-My understanding of Latin is very limited. But, the phrase I keep seeing used in regards to what you call “perpetual servitude” and what everyone else labels as slavery is the exact same. Does Latin use the same phrase for slave, indentured servant, servitude due to a crime, and servitude due to being a POW?

 

[Abu]

oldcatholicguy #38
No actual support that the Church and/or various Popes didn’t support slavery.
It doesn’t even begin to address the far less free version of this type of slavery found under feudalism (serfdom).
the phrase I keep seeing used in regards to what you call “perpetual servitude” and what everyone else labels as slavery is the exact same.

The fact is that the sack of Constantinople went on for three days. “Four thousand Christians were killed. More than 50,000 others, virtually the entire surviving population, were seized, and all but the few who could pay large ransoms were enslaved.” *The Glory of Christendom *in A History of Christendom, Vol. 3, Dr Warren H Carroll, Christendom Press, 1993, p 568].

The nonsense of calling serfdom and servitude “slavery” is also debunked by Dr Rodney Stark who refers to those historians who claim that “nothing happened other than a linguistic shift in which the word ‘slave’ was replaced by the word ‘serf’ ”, as “playing word games. Serfs were not chattels; they had had rights and a substantial degree of discretion. They married who they wished, and their families were not subject to sale or dispersal. They paid rent and thus controlled their own time and the pace of their work…sets of mutual obligations were the fundamental nature of feudalism.

In the seventh century, “Clovis II, king of the Franks, married his British slave Bathilda (who) used her position to mount a campaign against the slave trade and to redeem those in slavery.” She was declared a saint by the Church.

“Slavery ended in medieval Europe only because the Church extended its sacraments to all slaves and then managed to impose a ban on the enslavement of Christians (and of Jews).

“The theological conclusion that slavery is sinful has been unique to Christianity (although several early Jewish sects also rejected slavery.”
The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 27, 28, 30].

U.S. Economist, Stanford University professor, and Hoover Institute Senior Fellow, African Thomas Sowell, in Black Rednecks & White Liberals, in an essay titled The Real History of Slavery, declares:
“Slavery is almost as old as humanity, and as widespread as the globe. The Islamic world was notorious for its slave trade. Slavs were notoriously slaves. In fact the word “slave” comes from slav. Arabs and North Africans enslaved Europeans, Europeans enslaved other Europeans, Africans enslaved other Africans. Everyone enslaved someone. It was all the rage. While slavery was common to all civilizations, as well as to peoples considered uncivilized, only one civilization developed a moral revulsion against it, very late in its history — Western civilization…”

“The reason? The teaching of the Catholic Church from the beginning came to be believed widely as true.”