Did the Catholic Church Have a Hand in The Slave Trade? Treating Blacks & Other Ubelieving Races as Inferior?

Yes. The Roman Catholic Church has shamelessly supported slavery throughout its long, tortured history. It made illegitimate children of priests, and their offspring perpetual slaves of the Church, in contradiction to God's edict that corruption of blood not be visited upon the children. And Pastor Art's right: "Yes and the church of Rome also persecuted Bible believing Christians. That is those who followed Jesus according to the Bible and not according to Rome."

Rome had and still does have lots of things wrong because they, and the body Catholic, don't follow the Bible. They follow their own theories which change all the time and hurt so many.

Alls I can add to it is that in 1839 Pope Gregory XVI issued a papal bull, entitled In Supremo. Mainly it talked about the evils of the slave trade. Something that the US government eradicated by law in 1808. But it was still legal for some states to have slave ownership. The bull was wishy washy about continuing to own slaves and doesn't go as far as to declare all slaves free.

"We, by apostolic authority, warn and strongly exhort in the Lord faithful Christians of every condition that no one in the future dare bother unjustly, despoil of their possessions, or reduce to slavery Indians, Blacks or other such peoples."

There was no excommunication of those who violated the bull like in the other bulls. In other words the Pope carefully worded his bull to make it appear as if its okay to continue the practice even if condemned. There was no negative consequences to the faithful within the church and they would still receive communion.

All papal communications are facile and cryptic. Often they have numerous meanings. The Southern Bishops interpreted In Supremo to disapprove only the trading in slaves and not slavery itself. Bishop John England of Charleston actually wrote several letters to the Secretary of State under President Van Buren explaining that the pope, in In Supremo, did not condemn slavery but only the slave trade. The very fact that the Bishop and the other Southern Bishops had not been excommunicated reinforces the fact that the In Supremo was defective and only meant to appease anti-slavery, prohibitionist Catholics of the North.

Reinforcing the Church's pro-slavery stance in America was the fact that the Archbishop of Baltimore, John Carroll, owned one black servant. In 1820, the Jesuits had nearly 400 slaves on their Maryland plantations. The Society of Jesus owned a large number of slaves who worked on the their farms. They sold, but did not free, their slaves so they could realize more profit from their land from tenant farmers than slaves. Thus, the Jesuits began selling off their slaves in 1837 rather than free them, or have to face compliance with what would become In Supremo.

Post Civil War, and Post In Supremo, the Holy Office Instruction 20, June of 1866 states, unequivocally, ""Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary 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 donated."

Yessir. The Catholic Church among others had a strong hand in slavery world wide, and still does. Only the kinds of slavery today are alot worse.

Of course the Catholic Church had a hand in the slave trade. The Catholic church understands that the "slaves" were Moorish - that is a people who ruled over Spain which consisted of African and Arabian Berbers. The Africans claimed to be the original Jewish religiously and physically. The Moors were expelled from of Spain in 1492. The slave trade begin around this date. The Christians conquered Spain in 1492. They are the ones who moved the Moors to west Africa. Where the slave trade continued. Even though that wasn't the only route for these Moorish. They were sold into Europe and different parts of the middle east. They know for a fact that Black Americans may in fact have Jewish heritage in their ancestral blood line.

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RE:

Did the Catholic Church Have a Hand in The Slave Trade? Treating Blacks & Other Ubelieving Races as Inferior?

In the 1400's the Portuguese crown explored the African coast. During this period, commonly regarded as portending the age of exploration and Discovery and European colonialism in the word, the kings of various European nations sought justification for their actions to legitimize their prizes....

Joseph Stalin once asked, rhetorically, "how many divisions (army) does the Pope have?" The answer, of course, is none. Christianity is an other-worldly religion, unable to exercise worldly power. They have been appeasing powerful interest groups since the fall of Rome. Seriously, though, Portugal and Spain were a lot worse when it came to slavery in the New World. England banned slavery in 1833. Slavery ended in Brazil in 1888, not because of some altruism on the part of the slave-holders, but because they could no longer suppress the slave revolts, led mostly by the blacks who were Muslims.

Yes it did. It does it today by making third world blacks and people of color so dependent on it that its all but slavery in name.

The church in Rome has been a part of just about every human tragedy one way or another since Constantine. It was a religion that appealed to the humble the slave and the freeman. Once it became official around the fourth century, it began exterminating pagans, jews and anyone else that disagreed with it. It virtually ruled the old world. They stole temples and places of worship and converted them to churches. They stripped pagans of land and enslaved the "heathens".

It was intended to resurrect the ancient Roman empire only it used religion and fear to carry out rebuilding the old empire. Slavery was always part of Rome so sure why wouldnt the church want slavery and justify it? Even when slavery was criticized there was no out right ban on it. Wen the Portuguese invaded Africa they took blacks into slavery and exploited them. Many were baptized without even knowing why and still kept in chains, sold, worked to death or slaughtered in voyages across the seas.

A religion that says it teaches love for all mankind, also justified gentrifying love and making classes. I dont see how chaining humans together and forcing them into ship holds barely fed and dragged to the new world served any Christian purpose. It only proves how brutal the church in Rome can be.

Catholic Church And Slavery

The Catholic Church was the founders of the American Abolitionist movement. But why mention that when you can spread hate. But obviously from the "question" spreading hate was the whole purpose of this ignorant bigoted thread.

Yes and the church of Rome also persecuted Bible believing Christians. That is those who followed Jesus according to the Bible and not according to Rome.

Rome had and still does have lots of things messed up because they don't follow the Bible.

That is very informative, but why do you ask the question when you should already know the answer is, (judging from the information you have provided), Yes:

From http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=418725

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I can't even find the full text of this bull but it is a popular one for slandering the Catholic Church as endorsing slavery.

What we need to understand here is the context. This bull was written at a time of severe Muslim persecution of Christendom - Byzantine/Constantinople was under threat of attack and takeover by Muslims. In fact it was written just one year before the Muslims defeated Christian Byzantine (100-200K invaders against a mere 8,000 or so defenders). To give a context let me say that the Muslim invaders looted, pillaged and slaughtered Christians for a number of days before giving the few hiding survivors terms for their subjugation and homage if they surrendered as vassals to Islam.

The call by Pope Nicholas V (who authored this bull) was to rally Christendom to come to the aid of its members and confront Islam (the Saracens and pagan mercenaries they gained by conquering W. African pagan countries) head on. But he failed to get the European Kings to help and that is why Byzantine fell. This bull was directed to the Spanish only and was an authorization to engage the conquering Muslims and make war with them to stop their encroachment and aggression and conversion of Pagan Africa into homage by providing a quota of men of war - mercenaries . It was a time of war and at this time the Church had a definate voice of influence in government secular affairs and had to assert itself to defend innocent lives being slaughtered by the Muslim hordes. The pope uses the language and emotion of the day. Christians were terrorized by what looked like Satan himself waging war against Christendom. So the pope authorized the taking of prisoners of war and their enslavement/incarceration as a life sentence for crimes against Christendom. This is a mercy since the war convention at the time was to kill enemies due to the high cost of maintaining them and guarding or else holding the noble ones (knights/lords) as hostage for payment from their Christian families.

This bull was not a general edict to enslave people willy-nilly. It was no different than giving a life sentence to criminals with hard labor to pay back society as we still do to this very day here in the USA.

Bottom Line - Dum Diversas was a real papal bull but it in no way is 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. It was all issued at a time when the Church was trying hard to rally Christendom out of its apathy to help defend our eastern Christian brothers from being defeated.