THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND SLAVERY, PART 3
Roman jurists had already developed the maxim that any doubts in cases of freedom or slavery, should be resolved in favor of liberty.—William E. H. Lecky (1838-1903), The Substance of History of European Morals (from Augustus to Charlemagne), 2 vols, ed. Clement Wood (New York: Vanguard Press, 1926), I, p 295.
For example, Roman jurist Domitius Ulpianus (c. 160 A.D. - 228 A.D.) had said, “by the law of nature all men are equal.”—Digest, L, 17.32; and “natural law regards all men as equal”—On Sabinus, Book XLIII.
This concept was foreshadowed in the Bible: “In reality, the Hebrew slave is a hireling [employee],” says Henry J. Grimmelsman, Professor of Old Testament Exegesis, Mt. St. Mary Seminary of the West, Cincinnati, The Book of Exodus (Norwood, Cincinnati, Ohio: The Seminary Book Store, 1927), p 144.
The word “slave” was never used in the Hebrew Bible except Jeremiah 2:14 in criticism context. Instead, terms such as “made . . . to serve with rigor” and “hard bondage” (Exodus 1:13-14) were used to describe the forbidden thing (forbidden by Exodus 21:16 and Deuteronomy 24:7). Naturally, as Prof. Grimmelsman writes, the Hebrews had employees only, no slaves; and had received national punishment when, after several hundred years of freedom, under Judah’s last king, an attempt was made to establish slavery, says Rev. George Cheever, God Against Slavery, supra, pp 107-115.
You can refute slavers’ false claims that the Bible repeatedly says ‘slavery is ok.’ Simply call attention to the fact is that the word ‘slavery’ is not even in the Bible; nor the word ‘slaves,’ not until Rev. 18:13, listing examples of evils Christ destroys.
Popes Urban VIII (1639); Leo XIII (1888); and Gregory XVI denounced slavery, the latter “in a papal brief, In supremo (1839).”—Richard P. McBrien, Lives of the Popes: The Pontiffs from St. Peter to John Paul II (San Francisco: Harper, 1997), pp. 303, 339, 350.
Pursuant to English and U.S. constitutional and criminal law, slavery was illegal and unconstitutional. Protestant abolitionists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Lloyd Garrison also opposed slavery. In 1854, Stowe published a list of anti-slavery Biblical principles, copied extensively from even earlier works.
One of their colleagues, Rev. Parker Pillsbury, a survivor into the 1880’s, wrote a book citing the following incident: In 1829, outgoing Pope Leo XII (1823-1829) or incoming Pope Pius VIII (1829-1830) told Mexico to abolish slavery “for the glory of God and to distinguish mankind from the brute creation.”—Parker Pillsbury, Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles (Concord, N.H., 1883), pages 67, 81, and 381. (Pillsbury did not cite which Pope it was).
Rev. Pillsbury had earlier cited Catholic anti-slavery action, in his 1847 book, Forlorn Hope, p 94.
Abolitionists knew this otherwise unknown Roman Catholic Church activity and were citing the fact even six decades later as the 1883 Pillsbury book shows.
Catholic church history of actions against slavery was also cited by Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Boston: John P. Jewett & Co, 1853), pp 237-240, and specifically citing Dr. Jaime Luciano Balmes’ church history.
As we see, Mexico followed Church teaching to end slavery. Ny law, Mexico banned slavery. In retaliation, the United States invaded Mexican territory. Sadly, Protestant churches became cheer-leaders for the U.S. war of aggression. See Rev. Pillsbury, Forlon Hope, supra, pp 58-68. The majority of “Bible-Belt” clergy and Protestants were in fact heathens, p 21.
For general background on the U.S. War of Aggression against Mexico, see Rev. William Goodell, Slavery and Anti-Slavery, supra, three chapters, pp 272-305.
Slavery was primarily operated by tobacco. Tobacco pushers are aggressive, expansionist. The War against Mexico was part of their expansionist goals. In a moral sense, therefore, Mainstream U.S. Protestant Churches were promoting slavers’ causing atrocities and deaths, instead of the Gospel. See also Rev. Foster’s identifying a more sinister motive, in Brotherhood of Thieves (1843), pp 71-73 (concubines for themselves).
The Roman Catholic Church, by being anti-slavery, was thus continuing its former opposition to the tobacco lobby and its immorality (1493, arrested smoker from Columbus ship; 1642, condemning tobacco use and setting an excommunication penalty, says Julien L. Van Lancker, M.D.,“Smoking and Disease,” pp 231, 235, in the US DHEW NIDA book, Research on Smoking Behavior (Dec 1977).
