Slavery

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Montie_Claunch

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I was just wondering. Through the ages what has been the churches postion on slavery? Thanks and God bless.
 
Sorry if this doesn’t answer your question directly, but I thought it somewhat providential that I recieved this meditation this morning from “Word of Encouragement” by Jeff Cavins and Mark Shea:

Ephesians 6:5
Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ.​

It is a measure of the enormous distance we have traveled since the advent of Christ to note that, even for an extremely educated pre-Christian writer like Aristotle, it was a commonplace to speak of certain sorts of people as “natural slaves”. The New Testament, in contrast, though it recognizes the phenomenon of slavery as a reality of life, never derives from this contemporary reality the notion that “some people are more equal than others.” Rather, the New Testament insists that God is no respecter of persons and sees in both master and slave the image of Christ and the duty of mutual love. Today’s verse reflects exactly that truth. Paul urges slaves to serve their masters, not because slaves are inherently inferior or because they are to be servile to Fate, but because this is their peculiar opportunity to serve Christ in their full dignity as children of God. The “fear and trembling” to which Paul refers is not “craven submission” but the kind of awe which falls upon God’s anointed prophets when they are selected to bring his message to a world unworthy of them. Paul, in short, is reaffirming that God lifts up the meek and lowly in a miraculous way and makes them vehicles of God’s grace. Christ, who died a slave’s death, now calls slaves to share his eternal life and his dignity as sons and daughters of God.
CatholicExchange.com/church_today/message.asp?sec_id=5
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1866 AD

The Holy Office in an instruction signed by Pope Pius IX

declares: Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature,

is not at all contary to the natural and divine law, and there can

be several just titles of slavery, and these are referred to by

approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons …

It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be

sold, bought, exchanged or given.
 
stanley123 said:
1866 AD

The Holy Office in an instruction signed by Pope Pius IX

declares: Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature,

is not at all contary to the natural and divine law, and there can

be several just titles of slavery, and these are referred to by

approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons …

It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be

sold, bought, exchanged or given.
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Correct, however it must be in context. As today the Church consideres slavery just under particular circumstances (titles). This is through various measures of what today we call indentured servatude. This can be licitly imposed through various means.
 
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mosher:
Correct, however it must be in context. .
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Is it OK to kidnap, enslave and imprison young Jewish boys, such as was done under the order of Pope Pius IX in the case of Edgardo Mortara on June 23, 1858? I read that the Jewish parents were kneeling and weeping and pleading with the police not to forcibly kidnap their six year old Jewsih son, but the police with their threatening weapons, said too bad, we have the orders from the Roman Catholic Pope Pius IX to take your son from you, which they did do, under threat of force.
 
Can someone document, for the record, when the Church actually invented slavery, chattel or otherwise?

The Church was formed in the year 33 +/-.

So when was slavery invented?
 
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stanley123:
Is it OK to kidnap, enslave and imprison young Jewish boys, such as was done under the order of Pope Pius IX in the case of Edgardo Mortara on June 23, 1858? I read that the Jewish parents were kneeling and weeping and pleading with the police not to forcibly kidnap their six year old Jewsih son, but the police with their threatening weapons, said too bad, we have the orders from the Roman Catholic Pope Pius IX to take your son from you, which they did do, under threat of force.
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Ok, and this relates to Church teaching on chattel slavery how?
 
Scott Waddell:
Ok, and this relates to Church teaching on chattel slavery how?
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It relates to the state of someone being under the control of another person against his will and agaisnt the will of his parents. Generally, I would be opposed to such a kidnapping and holding a person for life against the will of his parents as it happened in the case mentioned.
 
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stanley123:
Is it OK to kidnap, enslave and imprison young Jewish boys, such as was done under the order of Pope Pius IX in the case of Edgardo Mortara on June 23, 1858? I read that the Jewish parents were kneeling and weeping and pleading with the police not to forcibly kidnap their six year old Jewsih son, but the police with their threatening weapons, said too bad, we have the orders from the Roman Catholic Pope Pius IX to take your son from you, which they did do, under threat of force.
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Can you document this for me. I would like to research the validity of this claim.
 
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mosher:
Can you document this for me. I would like to research the validity of this claim.
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I can’t document it, but may be able to add something to help the search. I recall he kid grew up to be a priest, and subsequently a Vatican official. I read this while studying the history of the formation of modern Italy. Sorry - no cite.
 
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stanley123:
Is it OK to kidnap, enslave and imprison young Jewish boys, such as was done under the order of Pope Pius IX in the case of Edgardo Mortara on June 23, 1858? I read that the Jewish parents were kneeling and weeping and pleading with the police not to forcibly kidnap their six year old Jewsih son, but the police with their threatening weapons, said too bad, we have the orders from the Roman Catholic Pope Pius IX to take your son from you, which they did do, under threat of force.
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Not quite the case:

catholicforum.com/saints/pope025501.htm
 
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FCEGM:
Not quite the case:

catholicforum.com/saints/pope025501.htm
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The case is as stated. The Jewish boy was forcibly converted by baptism and forcibly taken from his parents. Is this not against the natural law to focibly kidnap a child from his Jewish parents in order that he be brought up as a Catholic against the wishes of his parents? Is this not a form of slavery according to one definition of it as it relates to the state of someone being under the control of another person against his will and agaisnt the will of his parents? It is true that decades after his being held and propagandised against the will of his parents, he signed a statement to the effect that he was happy several decades after being kidnapped. You can check this out in the Jewish encyclopedia:
“A case of forcible abduction in which a child named Edgar Mortara was violently removed from the custody of his parents by papal guards in Bologna on June 23, 1858.” More at:
jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=809&letter=M
 
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stanley123:
The case is as stated. The Jewish boy was forcibly converted by baptism and forcibly taken from his parents. Is this not against the natural law to focibly kidnap a child from his Jewish parents in order that he be brought up as a Catholic against the wishes of his parents? Is this not a form of slavery according to one definition of it as it relates to the state of someone being under the control of another person against his will and agaisnt the will of his parents? It is true that decades after his being held and propagandised against the will of his parents, he signed a statement to the effect that he was happy several decades after being kidnapped. You can check this out in the Jewish encyclopedia:
“A case of forcible abduction in which a child named Edgar Mortara was violently removed from the custody of his parents by papal guards in Bologna on June 23, 1858.” More at:
jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=809&letter=M
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This from a lengthier article on Pope Pius IX by Robert P. Lockwood gives a good overview of the case:
catholicleague.org/research/pionono.html
 
]. . .Pope Pius IX would eventually be asked to use his authority to have Edgardo returned to his parents. By then, of course, the papal hands were even more tightly bound by the international publicity surrounding the case. To give in, would be to surrender to the enemies of the Church. Edgardo had also became a favorite of the pope, and could be seen scurrying around the papal rooms. He would eventually study for the priesthood and be ordained. When Rome was absorbed into the unified Italian State in 1870, Edgardo was 18 and had begun his studies for the priesthood. When another Jewish boy who had claimed conversion to the Church was seized and returned to his parents,26 Edgardo fled to Austria. He eventually made peace with his mother and family, though his father passed away before they could be reconciled.27 He remained a monk and died in 1940 at the age of 88 at a Belgian abbey where he lived and studied for many years.
The Mortara affair supplied the enemies of Pius IX with a strong propaganda weapon at a point when the Papal States were about to collapse. The extent of the vitriol aimed at Pius was enormous and worldwide. Adopting the anti-Catholic rhetoric of the Know Nothings, Jewish groups in the United States saw it as a Jesuit-inspired conspiracy of “soul-less lackeys,” compared Pius to the “Prince of Darkness” and reminded their Protestant audience of the “history of these incarnate fiends, written in the blood of millions of victims.”28 For Cavour, who aimed at Italian unification, it was one more weapon to be used in the propaganda arsenal.
Was Pius XI’s refusal to return Edgardo Mortara an act of pure anti-Semitism? In the context of the times, it clearly was not. This did not involve racial prejudice. The Church in Rome had a long history of defending Jewish converts to the faith and accepting them completely after such a conversion, as was done in the case of Edgardo Mortara. The Church in Rome viewed with disgust and disdain the Spanish Inquisition’s attacks on conversos – Jewish converts to Catholicism accused in later generations to be secretly practicing the Jewish faith – as simple racial prejudice, or a means to extort Jewish money.29 The motivations of Pius IX were not anti-Semitic, though they certainly were offensive to the Jewish faith. But in his actions, Pius reflected both the generally accepted norms of the time concerning families of mixed religion, as well as the law as it stood within the Papal States. To return Edgardo would have been, to Pius IX, denial of the validity and sacredness of the sacrament of baptism.
The actions of Pius IX are not defensible in today’s understanding, and would not be defended by the Church. Yet his motivations were not racially motivated. It was not understood by him to be an anti-Jewish act, but an act to assure the salvation of a soul. His motivation was primarily religious. He believed unquestionably that a baptized child could not be raised in an unbaptized household. That is why he so firmly rejected returning the boy, despite the favorable publicity it would have engendered for him in perilous times.
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catholicleague.org/research/pionono.html
 
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FCEGM:
He believed unquestionably that a baptized child could not be raised in an unbaptized household. That is why he so firmly rejected returning the boy
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According to the natural law, should the religion of a six year old boy be determined by the child’s parents, or does a Catholic have the right to forcibly baptise and convert the child against the will of the parents and subsequently, do the Catholic clergy have the riight under the natural law to forcibly kidnap the Jewish boy and hold him against the will of his parents? Was that not what was done with the approval of the Pope in this case?
 
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stanley123:
According to the natural law, should the religion of a six year old boy be determined by the child’s parents, or does a Catholic have the right to forcibly baptise and convert the child against the will of the parents and subsequently, do the Catholic clergy have the riight under the natural law to forcibly kidnap the Jewish boy and hold him against the will of his parents? Was that not what was done with the approval of the Pope in this case?
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Objectivelly it is a difficult question. There are tinges of moral points and immoral points in the account. Because the child was in danger of death it was meritorious to baptize him for the sake of his soul. The will of the parents in that matter are not relavent because the good was to baptize in the event of danger of death. The law that a Christian could not live or be raised by no Christians in the Papal states is not necessarily an immoral law but I would submit that is not necessarily the best law. It comes from a legitimate care of the soul of the individual but it ignores the responsibilities of the parents.

My first emotional response is that it is cruel but on the level of reason I can’t see the error because this is morally a situation between two goods but the higher good is met with the protection of the soul of the child.
 
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mosher:
Objectivelly it is a difficult question. There are tinges of moral points and immoral points in the account. Because the child was in danger of death it was meritorious to baptize him for the sake of his soul. The will of the parents in that matter are not relavent because the good was to baptize in the event of danger of death. The law that a Christian could not live or be raised by no Christians in the Papal states is not necessarily an immoral law but I would submit that is not necessarily the best law. It comes from a legitimate care of the soul of the individual but it ignores the responsibilities of the parents.

My first emotional response is that it is cruel but on the level of reason I can’t see the error because this is morally a situation between two goods but the higher good is met with the protection of the soul of the child.
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So to sum up: According to the way you look at it, it is OK to focibly kidnap a six year ol Jewish boy so that he may be brought up as a Catholic against the will of his parents?
I am opposed to that . I think it is better for the parents to decide what religion their six year old son should have, and also I think it is outrageous for the Catholic authorities to forcibly kidnap a six year old boy from his Jewish parents.
Have you studied the history of the Janissaries in the Balkan states, according to which the Islamic authorities beleive it is OK to take the first born Orthodox Christian son from his parents and take him to turkey against the will of his parents and bring him up as an islamic soldier who will then be taught to fight against his own people. This is similar to the case under discussion except that the respective religons involved are diferent.
 
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