Given its two-thousand year existence, the Catholic Church’s record on slavery has long been subject to analysis from external critics, who allege doctrinal error that they argue nullifies the Church’s claim to infallibility. In turn, internal critics argue that if the Church got it wrong for centuries on slavery, then “progress” is also possible on other moral doctrine—especially on matters of sexuality in general and regarding sodomy in particular.
Questions have been raised anew because of Pope Leo XIII’s brief treatment of slavery in his recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas (MH):
It was only in the nineteenth century that a formal, absolute and universal condemnation of slavery was clearly articulated, notably under Pope Leo XIII [175]. . . .
Although there was not always consistency in practice—given that slavery was long tolerated before being unequivocally condemned—there has been a continuous affirmation throughout history of the dignity of every human being, created in the image of God, even if it took eighteen centuries for its full incompatibility with slavery to be explicitly recognized (176).
In the related footnote 175, which references Leo XIII’s 1888 encyclical In Plurimis, Leo XIV writes, “Consider that, as late as 1866, the Holy Office distinguished between the immoral and moral aspects of slavery, without fully condemning it.”
Leo’s qualifying words “distinguished between the immoral and moral aspects of slavery” are important, because they convey that there are different types of slavery or servitude. Also important is that there has been “a continuous affirmation throughout history of the dignity of every human being,” illustrating that the Church has always gotten it right regarding the intrinsic moral evil of chattel slavery, in which human beings are treated as possessions, bereft of human rights.
Different Types of Servitude
Unfortunately, many people are misreading the pope’s new encyclical, including those who think the Church was late to the party—namely, for getting its doctrine right only twenty-three years after the U.S. Civil War ended, which legally ended chattel slavery in the nation, along with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865.
To be clear, the Church has from its foundations condemned chattel slavery. My colleagues Trent Horn and Jimmy Akin, and our friend John DeRosa, have addressed the Bible’s treatment of slavery, including that of Jesus and the teachings of St. Paul in the early Church. In addition, historian Steve Weidenkopf has chronicled the Church’s record otherwise to the present.
When the transatlantic slave trade commenced in the 1400s, Pope Eugenius IV issued in 1435 his bull Sicut Didum. As Weidenkopf summarizes regarding chattel slavery,
[Eugenius] demanded that Christians free all enslaved natives of the Canary Islands within fifteen days; failure to do so would incur automatic excommunication. Thus, fifty-seven years before Columbus’s first voyage, the Roman pontiff unequivocally prohibited the enslavement of native peoples.
Critics counter with two bulls from Pope Nicholas V: Dum Diversas in 1452 and Pontifex Romanus in 1455. Although the bulls’ directives on slavery are certainly up for constructive criticism, Nicholas was not attempting to teach definitively, and thus the Church’s charism of infallibility was not in play, let alone nullified. Rather, as I told EWTN News after Magnifica Humanitas was issued,
One condition for infallible doctrinal pronouncements is that they must apply to all people at all times. The bulls from Nicholas V apply only “in a particular geographical situation in a particular time in history,” [Nash said], and . . . “we cannot treat every papal statement as if it’s an infallible declaration.”
Indeed, Nicholas V was making time-conditioned, prudential judgments, aimed at stifling the anti-Christian efforts of imperialist Muslims and others. Recall that Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire in May 1453. Consequently, Nicholas’s directives should be understood as applying to prisoners of war, not chattel slaves, although human dignity must be respected in all circumstances.
The Holy Office’s 1866 Instruction
The Holy Office, today known as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), does not have the charism of infallibility, which only the pope and the bishops in union with him possess in certain, limited circumstances. Still, the Holy Office’s pronouncements are normally issued with the approval of the pope.
In its 1866 instruction, the Holy Office responded to Fr. Guglielmo Massaia, the apostolic vicar of the Oromia region of Ethiopia. In its response, the Holy Office first makes a distinction between those who had been “justly enslaved” versus “unjustly enslaved.” Here again we see a distinction between someone whose enslavement is a result of some wrongdoing, and who is doing “his time” not in a prison, but in servitude, in contrast to someone who has been unjustly enslaved. Also, even for those justly enslaved, the Holy Office states,
It is altogether necessary that the seller is the legitimate possessor of the slave, and does nothing in the sale by which the life, morals, or Catholic faith of the slave to be sold be harmed.
Therefore it is illicit to sell a slave or in any manner give the slave into the ownership of any master who by a certain or probable judgment can be foreseen to be going to treat that slave inhumanely, or lead him to sin or abuse him for the sake of that most evil trade which has been condemned and strictly prohibited by the constitutions of the Roman pontiffs, especially by Pope Gregory XVI.
Likewise it is illicit to sell a slave, taking no account of the marriage rights and duties of that same slave. Much more illicit is it to sell a Christian slave to a faithless master, or even, where the danger of falling away is prudently to be feared, to a heretical or schismatic master.
The Holy Office also envisions that those unjustly enslaved can be ransomed by Christians and thereby freely commit to a form of indentured servitude for a period of time, and in which their various human rights would be upheld.
Despite the clear disclaimers by the Holy Office in safeguarding the human rights among those held in servitude in Ethiopia, Fr. Christopher J. Kellerman, S.J. writes,
The Holy Office’s language and theology sound almost exactly like the defenses of U.S. slaveholders. . . . Even if it became less popular over the years to refer to slaves as “chattel,” the new terminology and abstract definitions now popularly used could not cover the truth: slaves were still chattel. They were still moveable property to be used “for one’s own benefit” (169).
Kellerman equates—untenably—the undoubted chattel slavery of U.S. slaveholders with the provisions of the Holy Office’s 1866 instruction. With the backing of U.S. law, American slaveholders could—and indeed did—treat their slaves as chattel, mere property, whereas the Holy Office specifically upheld important human rights for those held in servitude in Ethiopia.
Implications for Other Church Teachings?
If the Church can “evolve” its teachings on slavery, as some misstate regarding the Church’s record on chattel slavery, what about other teachings—e.g., sexual matters? In a 2020 post on the website of New Ways Ministry, an organization that unequivocally opposes Church teaching on sodomy and the redefinition of marriage, Kellerman speaks of the Church’s “current teaching on sexuality,” as if it were not definitive and therefore could change. He adds,
Our current Catechism states, as a corollary to the Church’s condemnation of same-sex genital actions, that the “inclination” of homosexuality is “objectively disordered.” This teaching is highly problematic. . . . The Church’s current teaching drills into them that they cannot trust their own ability to recognize, give, and receive love.
In fact, the Church’s teachings on chastity, including regarding those who experience same-sex attraction (SSA), are part of Jesus’ teachings that set us free, now and forever (John 8:31-32; see CCC 2357-2359).
Even Leo XIII Has His Critics
In praising Leo XIII and his 1888 encyclical In Plurimis (IP), our present pontiff argues, regarding “the dignity of every human being,” that “it took eighteen centuries for its full incompatibility with slavery to be explicitly recognized” (MH 176). Here, Leo XIV comments on all forms of servitude, not simply genuine chattel slavery.
Ironically, in part, Leo XIII disagrees with his present-day successor, specifically regarding non-chattel servitude. Fr. John Maxwell argues that Leo XIII “made selective use of a number of documents” from a dozen popes “to suggest that there had been a constant ‘anti-slavery’ tradition in the Catholic Church” (117-118; see IP 15-18). For example, Maxwell cites various cases in which popes authorized slavery as a punishment, such as a number of Crusade-era popes regarding Christians who had aided the imperialist Muslims of that era. Still, again, these are cases of just punishment for wrongdoing, not the unjust deprivation of human freedom.
One famous papal document that Leo XIII doesn’t cite is Pope Paul III’s 1537 bull Sublimis Deus, in which the pontiff formally, categorically, and universally condemned chattel slavery. In addition, contrary to what Maxwell reports, Fr. Joel Panzer cites various scholars to establish that Paul III’s prudential-judgment motu propio in 1548 “allowed servitude according to the just titles in Rome [alone], primarily for captives of war,” not unjust slavery, and because “the number of prisoners of war in Rome had increased markedly,” given military conflicts with the imperialist Muslim Turks of the Ottoman Empire (27-29).
As Panzer adds, Paul III issued his motu propio as a concession, and it must be read as the time-conditioned, geographically limited document that it is.
Further, in speaking of the Church’s formal teaching record regarding the intrinsic moral evil of chattel slavery, Leo XIII is on the mark, and so he makes his pronouncement without denouncing the aforementioned 1866 instruction of the Holy Office:
From the beginning the Church spared no pains to make the Christian people, in a matter of such high importance, accept and firmly hold the true teachings of Christ and the apostles (IP 7).
In summary, going back to her founder, Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church has always formally taught against chattel slavery, while also authorizing prisoners of war, just punishment for other wrongdoing, and forms of indentured servitude at various points in its history. Those Church clerics and laymen who have acted contrary to the Church’s teachings have themselves to blame.