| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
09 Aug 2005 02:50:31 AM |
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Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
The Truth About the Catholic Church and Slavery
The problem wasn't that the leadership was silent. It was that almost
nobody listened.
By Rodney Stark | posted 07/18/2003
Some Catholic writers claim that it was not until 1890 that the Roman
Catholic Church repudiated slavery. A British priest has charged that
this did not occur until 1965. Nonsense!
As early as the seventh century, Saint Bathilde (wife of King Clovis
II) became famous for her campaign to stop slave-trading and free all
slaves; in 851 Saint Anskar began his efforts to halt the Viking slave
trade. That the Church willingly baptized slaves was claimed as proof
that they had souls, and soon both kings and bishops-including
William the Conqueror (1027-1087) and Saints Wulfstan (1009-1095) and
Anselm (1033-1109)-forbade the enslavement of Christians.
Since, except for small settlements of Jews, and the Vikings in the
north, everyone was at least nominally a Christian, that effectively
abolished slavery in medieval Europe, except at the southern and
eastern interfaces with Islam where both sides enslaved one another's
prisoners. But even this was sometimes condemned: in the tenth century,
bishops in Venice did public penance for past involvement in the
Moorish slave trade and sought to prevent all Venetians from
involvement in slavery. Then, in the thirteenth century, Saint Thomas
Aquinas deduced that slavery was a sin, and a series of popes upheld
his position, beginning in 1435 and culminating in three major
pronouncements against slavery by Pope Paul III in 1537.
It is significant that in Aquinas's day, slavery was a thing of the
past or of distant lands. Consequently, he gave very little attention
to the subject per se, paying more attention to serfdom, which he held
to be repugnant.
However, in his overall analysis of morality in human relationships,
Aquinas placed slavery in opposition to natural law, deducing that all
"rational creatures" are entitled to justice. Hence he found no natural
basis for the enslavement of one person rather than another, "thus
removing any possible justification for slavery based on race or
religion." Right reason, not coercion, is the moral basis of authority,
for "one man is not by nature ordained to another as an end."
Here Aquinas distinguished two forms of "subjection" or authority, just
and unjust. The former exists when leaders work for the advantage and
benefit of their subjects. The unjust form of subjection "is that of
slavery, in which the ruler manages the subject for his own [the
ruler's] advantage." Based on the immense authority vested in Aquinas
by the Church, the official view came to be that slavery is sinful.
It is true that some popes did not observe the moral obligation to
oppose slavery-indeed, in 1488 Pope Innocent VIII accepted a gift of
a hundred Moorish slaves from King Ferdinand of Aragon, giving some of
them to his favorite cardinals. Of course, Innocent was anything but
that when it came to a whole list of immoral actions. However, laxity
must not be confused with doctrine. Thus while Innocent fathered many
children, he did not retract the official doctrine that the clergy
should be celibate. In similar fashion, his acceptance of a gift of
slaves should not be confused with official Church teachings. These
were enunciated often and explicitly as they became pertinent.
During the 1430s, the Spanish colonized the Canary Islands and began to
enslave the native population. This was not serfdom but true slavery of
the sort that Christians and Moors had long practiced upon one
another's captives in Spain. When word of these actions reached Pope
Eugene IV (1431 to 1447), he issued a bull, Sicut dudum. The pope did
not mince words. Under threat of excommunication he gave everyone
involved fifteen days from receipt of his bull "to restore to their
earlier liberty all and each person of either sex who were once
residents of said Canary Islands . . . These people are to be totally
and perpetually free and are to be let go without the exaction or
reception of any money. Pope Pius II (1458 to 1464) and Pope Sixtus IV
(1471 to 1484) followed with additional bulls condemning enslavement of
the Canary Islanders, which, obviously, had continued. What this
episode displays is the weakness of papal authority at this time, not
the indifference of the Church to the sin of slavery.
With the successful Spanish and Portuguese invasions of the New World,
enslavement of the native peoples and the importation of Africans
ensued, and some slavers offered the rationale that this was not in
violation of Christian morality, as these were not "rational creatures"
entitled to liberty but were a species of animals and therefore
legitimately subject to human exploitation. This theological subterfuge
by slave-traders was artfully used by Norman F. Cantor to indict
Catholicism: "The church accepted slavery . . . in sixteenth-century
Spain, Christians were still arguing over whether black slaves had
souls or were animal creations of the Lord." Cantor gave no hint that
Rome repeatedly denounced New World slavery as grounds for
excommunication.
But that is precisely what Pope Paul III (1534 to 1549) had to say
about the matter. Although a member of a Roman ecclesiastical family,
and something of a libertine in his early years (he was made a cardinal
at twenty-five but did not accept ordination until he was fifty), Paul
turned out to be a very effective and pious pope who fully recognized
the moral significance of Protestantism and initiated the
Counter-Reformation. His magnificent bull against New World slavery (as
well as similar bulls by other popes) was somehow "lost" from the
historical record until very recently. I believe this was due to the
extreme Protestant biases of historians, who may also have been
scornful of the pope's predicating his attack on the assumption that
Satan was the cause of slavery:
[Satan,] the enemy of the human race, who always opposes all good men
so that the race may perish, has thought up a way, unheard of before
now, by which he might impede the saving word of God from being
preached to the nations. He has stirred up some of his allies who,
desiring to satisfy their own avarice, are presuming to assert far and
wide that the Indians of the West and the South who have come to our
notice in these times be reduced to our service like brute animals,
under the pretext that they are lacking in the Catholic faith. And they
reduce them to slavery, treating them with afflictions they would
scarcely use with brute animals.
Therefore, We . . . noting that the Indians themselves indeed are true
men . . . by our Apostolic Authority decree and declare by these
present letters that the same Indians and all other
peoples-eventhough they are outside the faith . . . should not be
deprived of their liberty or their other possessions . . . and are not
to be reduced to slavery, and that whatever happens to the contrary is
to be considered null and void. (My italics)
In a second bull on slavery, Paul imposed the penalty of
excommunication on anyone, regardless of their "dignity, state,
condition, or grade . . . who in any way may presume to reduce said
Indians to slavery or despoil them of their goods."
But nothing happened. Soon, in addition to the brutal exploitation of
the Indians, Spanish and Portuguese slave ships began to sail between
Africa and the New World. And just as overseas Catholic missionaries
had aroused Rome to condemn the enslavement of Indians, similar appeals
were filed concerning imported black slaves. On April 22, 1639, Pope
Urban VIII (1623 to 1644), at the request of the Jesuits of Paraguay,
issued a bull Commissum nobis reaffirming the ruling by "our
predecessor Paul III" that those who reduced others to slavery were
subject to excommunication. Eventually, the Congregation of the Holy
Office (the Roman Inquisition) even took up the matter. On March 20,
1686, it ruled in the form of questions and answers:
It is asked:
Whether it is permitted to capture by force and deceit Blacks and other
natives who have harmed no one?
Answer: no.
Whether it is permitted to buy, sell or make contracts in their respect
Blacks or other natives who have harmed no one and been made captives
by force of deceit?
Answer: no.
Whether the possessors of Blacks and other natives who have harmed no
one and been captured by force or deceit, are not held to set them
free?
Answer: yes.
Whether the captors, buyers and possessors of Blacks and other natives
who have harmed no one and who have been captured by force or deceit
are not held to make compensation to them?
Answer: yes.
Nothing ambiguous here. The problem wasn't that the Church failed to
condemn slavery; it was that few heard and most of them did not listen.
In this era, popes had little or no influence over the Spanish and the
Portuguese since at that time the Spanish ruled most of Italy; in 1527,
under the leadership of Charles V, they had even sacked Rome. If the
pope had little influence in Spain or Portugal, he had next to none in
their New World colonies, except indirectly through the work of the
religious orders. In fact, it was illegal even to publish papal decrees
"in the Spanish colonial possessions without royal consent," and the
king also appointed all of the bishops.
Nevertheless, Urban VIII's bull was read in public by the Jesuits in
Rio de Janeiro, with the result that rioters attacked the local Jesuit
college and injured a number of priests. In Santos a mob trampled the
Jesuit vicar-general when he tried to publish the bull, and the Jesuits
were expelled from Sao Paulo when word spread of their involvement in
obtaining the bull. Even so, knowledge of the antislavery bulls and the
later ruling of the Inquisition against slavery was generally limited
to the clergy, especially the religious orders, and thereby had limited
public impact.
Of course, the Spanish and the Portuguese were not the only slavers in
the New World. And even had they been published far and wide, papal
bulls had no moral force among the British and the Dutch. Thus it must
be noted that the introduction of slavery into the New World did not
prompt any leading Dutch or English Protestants to denounce it.
However, even though the papal bulls against slavery were hushed up in
the New World, the antislavery views of the Church did have a
significantly moderating effect in the Catholic Americas by means of
the Code Noir and C=F3digo Negro Espanol . In both cases, the Church
took the lead in their formulation and enforcement, thereby
demonstrating its fundamental opposition to slavery by trying to ensure
"the rights of the slave and his material welfare," and by imposing
"obligations on the slave owners, limiting their control over the
slave." As Eugene Genovese put it: "Catholicism made a profound
difference in the lives of the slaves. [It] imparted to Brazilian and
Spanish American slave societies an ethos . . . of genuine spiritual
power."
The prevalence of antireligious, and especially anti-Catholic, bias in
histories of slavery is well exemplified by the "discussion" of the
Code Noir in the Columbia Encyclopedia (1975) entry for Louisiana:
"[T]he Code Noir, adopted in 1724,provided for the rigid control of
their [slaves'] lives and the protection of whites. Additional
provisions established Catholicism as the official religion." And
that's it! Not the slightest acknowledgment of the many articles
designed to protect slaves. Granted, it was not an emancipation
proclamation, but neither was it the Code of Barbados.
As an additional instance of the antireligious bias among contemporary
historians, consider that in his discussion of the Code Noir, Robin
Blackburn wrote of the "pretended official policy of encouragement of
slave marriages in the French colonies," only to end his sentence with
the remarkable admission that it had "limited but not negligible
results. He then cited a document from Martinique reporting that half
of the slaves of marriageable age were married. Since, given the gender
distribution of the slave population, this would have equaled marriage
rates in France at that time, it would seem that it was sufficient that
support for marriage be "pretended."
Equally remarkable is the fact that so many distinguished historians of
slavery barely mentioned the Code Noir and ignored the C=F3digo Negro
Espanol so completely that it does not even appear in the indexes of
their well-known works.But if many historians have paid little or no
attention to these Church-inspired codes, virtually no one has even
mentioned the Code of Barbados (under any name), except for the few
historians specializing in slavery laws, and several who wrote
specifically about the history of slavery in Barbados, although the
code was observed in the entire British West Indies. I suggest that the
Code of Barbados would have received considerable attention had it been
produced by Catholics rather than by Protestants.
But perhaps the most revealing omission from all discussions of New
World slavery, and especially of the enslavement and mistreatment of
indigenous populations, concerns the Jesuit Republic of Paraguay. For
more than 150 years (1609-1768), the Jesuits administered an area more
than twice the size of France, located south of Brazil and west of the
territory ceded to Portugal by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494). Here,
a tiny group of Spanish Jesuits (probably never numbering more than two
hundred) founded, protected, educated, and advised a remarkable
civilization encompassing at least thirty "Reductions," or communities,
of Guarani Indians. Not only did arts and industry flourish in the
Jesuit republic (cities with paved streets and impressive buildings,
symphony orchestras, printing), but a valid attempt was made at
representative government. Their purpose in founding the republic, as
explained by the Jesuit superior Antonio Ruiz de Montoya in 1609, was
to Christianize and "civilize" the Indians so that they could be free
subjects of the Crown, equal to the Spaniards, and thus to "bring about
peace between the Spaniards and the Indians, a task so difficult that,
since the discovery of the West Indies more than a hundred years ago,
it still has not been possible."
The republic flourished, but rather than becoming the basis for
equality and peace, its existence offended many colonial officials and
planters, and provided a tempting plum for expropriation. Nevertheless,
the Jesuits managed to forestall and outmaneuver these opposed
interests for several generations. But then things began to go sour.
The first step in the downfall of the republic came in 1750 when the
Portuguese and Spanish signed a new treaty, redividing South America
along natural boundaries.
As a result, seven of the Reductions fell within Portuguese
jurisdiction. Ordered to turn these settlements over to civil
authorities, the Jesuits resisted and appealed to the Portuguese and
Spanish Crowns to have the Reductions spared. But their opponents were
too strong and too unscrupulous, planting rumors and false evidence of
Jesuit conspiracies against both Crowns. So in 1754 the Spanish sent
troops against the seven Reductions from the west, while the Portuguese
advanced from the east. Both forces of European troops were defeated by
the Indians, who were quite well trained in military tactics and had
muskets and cannons.
Although the Jesuits had not participated in the battles, they were
blamed as traitors and in response were expelled from Portugal and all
Portuguese territories in 1758. Soon additional plots against the
Jesuits succeeded in Spain as all members of the order were arrested
early in 1667 and deported to the Papal States. In July, colonial
authorities were ready to move against the Jesuits in Latin America,
and the roundup began in Buenos Aires and Cordoba. But it wasn't until
the next year that Spanish troops moved against the final twenty-three
Reductions and seized the remaining Jesuits, whereupon even very sick
and elderly fathers were tied to mules and transported over mountains
in bad weather, many to their deaths. Thus were the Jesuits expelled
from the Western Hemisphere. Soon their republic lay in ruins-defeated
and looted by civil authorities. Disheartened by their mistreatment and
the loss of the Black Robed Fathers, the surviving Guaran=ED drifted
away, many into the cities.
Of course, among the few historians to deal with the Jesuit republic
are some who harp against colonialism and Catholicism, condemn the
"fanatical" Jesuits for imposing religion and civilization on the
"gentle" Indians, and denounce Jesuit efforts to sustain a republic as
cruel paternalism and "ruthless exploitation.
But even if one were to accept the most extreme version of these
claims, one is still faced with sincere and effective efforts by the
Jesuits to protect the Indians against the planters and colonial
authorities who wished to reduce them to servitude or to eradicate them
entirely. To have constructed an advanced Indian civilization in this
historical context was quite an extraordinary feat. Moreover, the
antagonistic historians at least tell about this significant historical
event, while most other historians have simply ignored it.
I was able to find only two books on the subject in English written
during the past thirty years, one of them translated from Portuguese
and both now out of print. So far as I could discover, the only
acknowledgment of the subject in the Encyclopedia Britannica was this
single sentence under "Paraguay, History of": "During most of the
colonial era, Paraguay was known chiefly for the huge Jesuit mission
group of 30 reducciones." We are not even told what "reducciones" are.
As for the major works on New World slavery, all of which have bitter
(and often anti-Catholic) things to say about the enslavement and abuse
of Indians in Latin America: complete silence.
In contrast, considerable attention has been paid by historians to the
fact that not all of the Catholic clergy, including not all Jesuits,
accepted the claim that slavery was sinful. Indeed, sometimes in the
midst of slave societies, clergy themselves kept slaves-during the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Jesuits in Maryland were
slave-owners. Other clergy were very confused about the issue. For
example, the Dominican Bartolome de Las Casas (1474-1566) waged a
bitter and quite successful campaign against enslaving Indians, during
which he proposed that slaves be brought from Africa instead. Later he
came to deeply regret this proposal and expressed doubt as to whether
God would pardon him for this terrible sin.
It must also be acknowledged that the Church did not, usually, confront
governments head-on over the issue and attempt to force an end to
slavery. Granted that popes had threatened excommunication, but in
practice the Church settled for attempting to ameliorate the conditions
of slaves as much as possible. Thus the Church was unrelenting in its
assertion that slavery was only a condition of service, and that those
enslaved remained fully human and retained their full equality in the
eyes of God.
As the prominent Italian Cardinal Hyacinthe Gerdil (1718-1802) put it:
"Slavery is not to be understood as conferring on one man the same
power over another that men have over cattle . . . For slavery does not
abolish the natural equality of men . . . [and is] subject to the
condition that the master shall take due care of his slave and treat
him humanely."
As already mentioned, it was in this spirit that the first article of
the C=F3digo Negro Espanol required all masters to have their slaves
baptized and specified serious penalties for masters who did not allow
their slaves to attend mass or celebrate feast days. In contrast, the
Church of England usually did not recognize slaves "as baptisable human
beings." Both views had a profound effect, not only on those in
slavery, but on attitudes toward manumission and especially toward
ex-slaves.
What is clear is that the common assertion that the Catholic Church
generally favored slavery is not true. Indeed, as will be seen, when
American Quakers initiated the abolition movement, they found kindred
souls not only among other Protestants but among Roman Catholics too.
If monotheism has the potential to give rise to antislavery doctrines,
why did Islam not turn against slavery too? Indeed, why does slavery
persist in some Islamic areas, while having only recently been
discontinued in other Muslim nations in response to intense pressure
from the West?
To answer this question, we must recognize that theologians work within
definite intellectual limits-not just any conclusion is possible
given particular cultural materials. For example, it would be quite
impossible for Jewish, Christian, or Islamic theologians to deduce that
God takes no interest in human sexual behavior. The revealed texts
simply will not permit such a conclusion. Nor could Christian
theologians deduce that Jesus favored polygamy, at least not without an
additional revelation. The fundamental problem facing Muslim
theologians vis-a-vis the morality of slavery is that Muhammad bought,
sold, captured, and owned slaves.
Like Moses, the Prophet did advise that slaves be treated well: "[F]eed
them what you eat yourself and clothe them with what you wear . . .
They are God's people like unto you and be kind unto them." Muhammad
also freed several of his slaves, adopted one as his son, and married
another. In addition, the Qur'an teaches that it is wrong to "compel
your slave girls to prostitution" (24.33), and that one can gain
forgiveness for killing a fellow believer by freeing a slave (4.92).
As with the Jewish rules about slavery, Muhammad's admonition and
example probably often mitigated the conditions of slaves in Islam as
contrasted with Greece and Rome. But the fundamental morality of the
institution of slavery was not in doubt. While Christian theologians
were able to work their way around the biblical acceptance of slavery,
they probably could not have done so had Jesus kept slaves. That
Muhammad had owned slaves presented Muslim theologians with a fact that
no intellectual maneuvering could overcome, even had they desired to do
so.
Rodney Stark is professor of sociology and comparative religion at the
university of Washington. This article is an excerpt from his book, For
the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science,
Witch-hunts, and the End of Slavery.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/128/53.0.html
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| User: "JohnN" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
09 Aug 2005 11:01:40 AM |
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wrote:
The Truth About the Catholic Church and Slavery
The problem wasn't that the leadership was silent. It was that almost
nobody listened.
By Rodney Stark | posted 07/18/2003
Some Catholic writers claim that it was not until 1890 that the Roman
Catholic Church repudiated slavery. A British priest has charged that
this did not occur until 1965. Nonsense!
Was that before or after the RCC stopped castrating 8 yo boys for the
choir?
JohnN
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
09 Aug 2005 12:36:12 PM |
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JohnN wrote:
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote:
The Truth About the Catholic Church and Slavery
The problem wasn't that the leadership was silent. It was that almost
nobody listened.
By Rodney Stark | posted 07/18/2003
Some Catholic writers claim that it was not until 1890 that the Roman
Catholic Church repudiated slavery. A British priest has charged that
this did not occur until 1965. Nonsense!
Was that before or after the RCC stopped castrating 8 yo boys for the
choir?
JohnN
The RCC did not stop castrating choir boys. The secular Italian Kingdom
did after the occupation of Rome.
Pope Pius IX recognised the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
He made a crown of thorns with his own hands and sent it to Jefferson
Davis in his Union Gaol.
There are differences of opinion as to when the RCC abolished slavery,
but it was about 100 years after its abolition in Protestant Britain.
B C.
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| User: "Curt Emanuel" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
09 Aug 2005 05:46:56 PM |
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<bernard_connor@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1123608972.090263.130710@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
JohnN wrote:
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote:
The Truth About the Catholic Church and Slavery
The problem wasn't that the leadership was silent. It was that almost
nobody listened.
By Rodney Stark | posted 07/18/2003
Some Catholic writers claim that it was not until 1890 that the Roman
Catholic Church repudiated slavery. A British priest has charged that
this did not occur until 1965. Nonsense!
Was that before or after the RCC stopped castrating 8 yo boys for the
choir?
JohnN
The RCC did not stop castrating choir boys. The secular Italian Kingdom
did after the occupation of Rome.
Pope Pius IX recognised the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
He made a crown of thorns with his own hands and sent it to Jefferson
Davis in his Union Gaol.
There are differences of opinion as to when the RCC abolished slavery,
but it was about 100 years after its abolition in Protestant Britain.
B C.
Well, I don't know exactly when Britain abolished all slavery but Pope Paul
III issued a Papal Bull against all slavery in 1537:
"The exalted God loved the human race so much that He created man in such a
condition that he was not only a sharer in good as are other creatures, but
also that he would be able to reach and see face to face the inaccessible
and invisible Supreme Good... Seeing this and envying it, the enemy of the
human race, who always opposes all good men so that the race may perish, has
thought up a way, unheard of before now, by which he might impede the saving
word of God from being preached to the nations. He (Satan) has stirred up
some of his allies who, desiring to satisfy their own avarice, are presuming
to assert far and wide that the Indians...be reduced to our service like
brute animals, under the pretext that they are lacking the Catholic faith.
And they reduce them to slavery, treating them with afflictions they would
scarcely use with brute animals... by our Apostolic Authority decree and
declare by these present letters that the same Indians and all other
peoples - even though they are outside the faith - ...should not be deprived
of their liberty... Rather they are to be able to use and enjoy this liberty
and this ownership of property freely and licitly, and are not to be reduced
to slavery."
Since Protestanism can only have begun after 1517 I'm a bit dubious of your
claim.
Also, I'm reasonably certain it was prohibited well before that among
Christians but I'm unable to find the primary source for that (and not about
to search through 500 years of Ecumenical Councils and Papal Bulls) however
Jacques LeGoff in _Medieval Civlization_ writes, "One of the great
criticisms which Adalbert bishop of Prague made in the late tenth century of
his flock, whom he accused of having returned to paganism, was selling
Christians to Jewish slave-merchants. A non-Christian was not really Human;
only a Christian could enjoy the rights of a man, among them protection from
slavery."
I know Gregory of Nyssa wrote extensively on this in the 4th century and the
manumission of slaves was very prevalent through the early Middle Ages -
manumitted to serfs where they were bound to the land, not a master (though
in many cases this amounted to the same thing).
Of course to us slavery is terrible but I wonder if the medieval peasant
captured at Agincourt or Crecy or any other battle thought so - formerly he
would likely be captured and sold as a slave. Now he was worthless and
killed.
Curt Emanuel
cemanuel@famvid.com
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| User: "Katt" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
09 Aug 2005 06:33:21 PM |
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"Curt Emanuel" <cemanuel@familyonline.com> wrote in message
news:ddbbp402gho@news3.newsguy.com...
There are differences of opinion as to when the RCC abolished slavery,
but it was about 100 years after its abolition in Protestant Britain.
Well, I don't know exactly when Britain abolished all slavery but Pope
Paul
III issued a Papal Bull against all slavery in 1537:
Of course to us slavery is terrible but I wonder if the medieval peasant
captured at Agincourt or Crecy or any other battle thought so - formerly
he
would likely be captured and sold as a slave. Now he was worthless and
killed.
With all due respect, there are serious problems with your grasp of the
chronology here; and I'm afraid I don't have time to correct them in detail.
But the British Empire had freed all its slaves by 1838; the US officially
emancipated its last slaves by 1865. What's more, the mass slaughters of
prisoners that were carried out in the 15th century (such as at Agincourt,
1415) actually took place at a time when European slavery was still growing
into a massively profitable trade.
Hope that helps.
Katt.
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| User: "G*rd*n" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
09 Aug 2005 11:12:10 PM |
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"Katt" <katt@office.commm>:
With all due respect, there are serious problems with your grasp of the
chronology here; and I'm afraid I don't have time to correct them in detail.
But the British Empire had freed all its slaves by 1838; the US officially
emancipated its last slaves by 1865. What's more, the mass slaughters of
prisoners that were carried out in the 15th century (such as at Agincourt,
1415) actually took place at a time when European slavery was still growing
into a massively profitable trade.
It is my understanding that the modern growth of slavery,
including the slave trade of course, had not begun at that
time. I am going by _The Slave Trade: The Story of the
Atlantic Slave Trade 1440-1870_ by Hugh Thomas:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obi dos/tg/detail/-/0684810638
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| User: "Katt" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
10 Aug 2005 06:37:09 AM |
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"G*rd*n" <gcf@panix.com> wrote in message
news:ddbuqq$i5i$1@reader2.panix.com...
It is my understanding that the modern growth of slavery,
including the slave trade of course, had not begun at that
time. I am going by _The Slave Trade: The Story of the
Atlantic Slave Trade 1440-1870_ by Hugh Thomas
And it's *my* understanding that you are reading a book about the 'Atlantic
Slave Trade' without having the sense to realise that it isn't going to be
very informative about all the slavery that didn't involve the Atlantic. You
bloody moron.
Katt.
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| User: "G*rd*n" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
10 Aug 2005 09:12:08 AM |
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"G*rd*n" <gcf@panix.com>:
It is my understanding that the modern growth of slavery,
including the slave trade of course, had not begun at that
time. I am going by _The Slave Trade: The Story of the
Atlantic Slave Trade 1440-1870_ by Hugh Thomas
"Katt" <katt@office.commm>:
And it's *my* understanding that you are reading a book about the 'Atlantic
Slave Trade' without having the sense to realise that it isn't going to be
very informative about all the slavery that didn't involve the Atlantic. You
bloody moron.
The author gives an overview of slavery in Europe in order
to set the stage for the history he's about to describe. It
was interesting to him (and to me) that it had practically
died out before the great burst of European exploration and
expansion which occurred around 1500.
I don't know about being a moron. I did cite a relevant and
probably reliable text, but on the other hand I posted it on
Usenet, and got the sort of reaction I could have expected.
Maybe you're right.
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| User: "Katt" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
10 Aug 2005 09:48:31 AM |
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"G*rd*n" <gcf@panix.com> wrote in message
news:ddd1vo$j7s$1@reader2.panix.com...
"G*rd*n" <gcf@panix.com>:
It is my understanding that the modern growth of slavery,
including the slave trade of course, had not begun at that
time. I am going by _The Slave Trade: The Story of the
Atlantic Slave Trade 1440-1870_ by Hugh Thomas
"Katt" <katt@office.commm>:
And it's *my* understanding that you are reading a book about the
'Atlantic
Slave Trade' without having the sense to realise that it isn't going to
be
very informative about all the slavery that didn't involve the Atlantic.
You
bloody moron.
The author gives an overview of slavery in Europe in order
to set the stage for the history he's about to describe. It
was interesting to him (and to me) that it had practically
died out before the great burst of European exploration and
expansion which occurred around 1500.
I don't know about being a moron. I did cite a relevant and
probably reliable text, but on the other hand I posted it on
Usenet, and got the sort of reaction I could have expected.
Maybe you're right.
Can't help you. Sorry.
Katt.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
10 Aug 2005 12:19:51 PM |
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Curt Emanuel wrote:
<bernard_connor@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1123608972.090263.130710@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
JohnN wrote:
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote:
The Truth About the Catholic Church and Slavery
The problem wasn't that the leadership was silent. It was that almost
nobody listened.
By Rodney Stark | posted 07/18/2003
Some Catholic writers claim that it was not until 1890 that the Roman
Catholic Church repudiated slavery. A British priest has charged that
this did not occur until 1965. Nonsense!
Was that before or after the RCC stopped castrating 8 yo boys for the
choir?
JohnN
The RCC did not stop castrating choir boys. The secular Italian Kingdom
did after the occupation of Rome.
Pope Pius IX recognised the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
He made a crown of thorns with his own hands and sent it to Jefferson
Davis in his Union Gaol.
There are differences of opinion as to when the RCC abolished slavery,
but it was about 100 years after its abolition in Protestant Britain.
B C.
Well, I don't know exactly when Britain abolished all slavery but Pope Paul
III issued a Papal Bull against all slavery in 1537:
"The exalted God loved the human race so much that He created man in such a
condition that he was not only a sharer in good as are other creatures, but
also that he would be able to reach and see face to face the inaccessible
and invisible Supreme Good... Seeing this and envying it, the enemy of the
human race, who always opposes all good men so that the race may perish, has
thought up a way, unheard of before now, by which he might impede the saving
word of God from being preached to the nations. He (Satan) has stirred up
some of his allies who, desiring to satisfy their own avarice, are presuming
to assert far and wide that the Indians...be reduced to our service like
brute animals, under the pretext that they are lacking the Catholic faith.
And they reduce them to slavery, treating them with afflictions they would
scarcely use with brute animals... by our Apostolic Authority decree and
declare by these present letters that the same Indians and all other
peoples - even though they are outside the faith - ...should not be deprived
of their liberty... Rather they are to be able to use and enjoy this liberty
and this ownership of property freely and licitly, and are not to be reduced
to slavery."
Since Protestanism can only have begun after 1517 I'm a bit dubious of your
claim.
Also, I'm reasonably certain it was prohibited well before that among
Christians but I'm unable to find the primary source for that (and not about
to search through 500 years of Ecumenical Councils and Papal Bulls) however
Jacques LeGoff in _Medieval Civlization_ writes, "One of the great
criticisms which Adalbert bishop of Prague made in the late tenth century of
his flock, whom he accused of having returned to paganism, was selling
Christians to Jewish slave-merchants. A non-Christian was not really Human;
only a Christian could enjoy the rights of a man, among them protection from
slavery."
I know Gregory of Nyssa wrote extensively on this in the 4th century and the
manumission of slaves was very prevalent through the early Middle Ages -
manumitted to serfs where they were bound to the land, not a master (though
in many cases this amounted to the same thing).
Of course to us slavery is terrible but I wonder if the medieval peasant
captured at Agincourt or Crecy or any other battle thought so - formerly he
would likely be captured and sold as a slave. Now he was worthless and
killed.
Curt Emanuel
cemanuel@famvid.com
Slavery was re-introduced into the Irish Free State ( now the Republic
of Ireland) after the British withdrawal in 1922.
The Legion of Mary backed by the DMP ( Dublin Metropolitan Police)
closed down the brothels in Dublin and imprisoned the women in the
Magdalene Laundries. Young girls who were regarded as a nuisance by
their parents and illegitimate
girls were also incarcerated in the evil Goldenbridge Institution.
They worked by day in cleaning the dirty underwear of priests and often
had to provide sexual services for them, unpaid. At least they got paid
in the brothels.
Orphaned and illegitmate boys were also treated in a savage fashion.
They worked as slaves and were also sexually abused. Unlike the women,
they were freed when they became adults.
B C.
Youg orphaned males and illegitimate boys also
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
09 Aug 2005 08:07:33 AM |
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wrote:
The Truth About the Catholic Church and Slavery
The problem wasn't that the leadership was silent. It was that almost
nobody listened.
By Rodney Stark | posted 07/18/2003
Some Catholic writers claim that it was not until 1890 that the Roman
Catholic Church repudiated slavery. A British priest has charged that
this did not occur until 1965. Nonsense!
As early as the seventh century, Saint Bathilde (wife of King Clovis
II) became famous for her campaign to stop slave-trading and free all
slaves; in 851 Saint Anskar began his efforts to halt the Viking slave
trade. That the Church willingly baptized slaves was claimed as proof
that they had souls, and soon both kings and bishops-including
William the Conqueror (1027-1087) and Saints Wulfstan (1009-1095) and
Anselm (1033-1109)-forbade the enslavement of Christians.
Since, except for small settlements of Jews, and the Vikings in the
north, everyone was at least nominally a Christian, that effectively
abolished slavery in medieval Europe,
Would you care to elaborate on how decisions of the Catholic Church
would
be of any importance for the Orthodox areas of Europe?
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| User: "Gregory Gadow" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
09 Aug 2005 08:48:56 AM |
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wrote:
The Truth About the Catholic Church and Slavery
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/128/53.0.html
As Rome is all too eager to repeat, a few rogue individuals do not Catholic
policy establish.
Slavery was first denounced by the Pope in the encyclical _Catholicae
Ecclesiae_, promulgated on November 20, 1890 by Pope Leo XIII. That letter,
addressed to Catholic missionaries in Africa, is the first time anywhere
that the institution of slavery is explicitly condemned. Earlier popes
called upon slave owners to free their slaves or, lacking that, to provide
them with proper Catholic teaching, baptism and access to the sacraments.
After all, Paul himself spoke of slavery as having been instituted by God
and called on slaves to be loyal and obedient to their masters. Who is the
pope to forbid something that the Apostle permitted? In fact, some popes
explicitly *permitted* slavery. For example, Pope Pius IX, _Instruction_,
promulgated June 20, 1866:
"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 given."
It is not until Vatican II and the document _Gaudium et Spes_ (known in
English as "Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World") in
1965 that slavery is explicitly and unequivocally condemned as sin.
--
Gregory Gadow
techbear@serv.net
http://www.serv.net/~techbear
"It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be
mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not
consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists
in professing to believe what one does not believe. It
is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may
so express it, that mental lying has produced in society.
When man has so far corrupted and prostituted the
chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional
belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared
himself for the commission of every other crime."
- Thomas Paine, "The Age of Reason"
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| User: "Josef Balluch" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
09 Aug 2005 08:51:15 PM |
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In a message sent 'round the world, poured
fuel on the fire with the following:
The Truth About the Catholic Church and Slavery
The problem wasn't that the leadership was silent. It was that almost
nobody listened.
....
Well, isn't that a ringing endorsement for an institution that claims to
be a moral authority.
Regards,
Josef
The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble
with Christianity is the Christians.
-- H.L. Mencken
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| User: "*nemo*" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
09 Aug 2005 04:08:07 AM |
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In article <1123573831.053874.315450@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
wrote:
As early as the seventh century, Saint Bathilde (wife of King Clovis
II) became famous for her campaign to stop slave-trading and free all
slaves
Oh wow. So a Christian woman got into the history books because she
wanted to go against the teachings and laws of the Bible. Guess how
bloody unimpressed I am.
--
Nemo - EAC Commissioner for Bible Belt Underwater Operations.
Atheist #1331 (the Palindrome of doom!)
BAAWA Knight! - One of those warm Southern Knights, y'all!
Charter member, SMASH!!
http://home.earthlink.net/~jehdjh/Relpg.html
Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus
Quotemeister since March 2002
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| User: "MarkA" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
09 Aug 2005 11:49:17 AM |
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On Tue, 09 Aug 2005 09:08:07 +0000, *nemo* wrote:
In article <1123573831.053874.315450@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
wordsoftruth114@email.com wrote:
As early as the seventh century, Saint Bathilde (wife of King Clovis II)
became famous for her campaign to stop slave-trading and free all slaves
Oh wow. So a Christian woman got into the history books because she wanted
to go against the teachings and laws of the Bible. Guess how bloody
unimpressed I am.
Yes, the RCC has a long tradition of being at the leading edge of social
reform and egalitarianism. HAHAHAHA!
--
MarkA
(still caught in the maze of twisty little passages, all different)
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| User: "BernardZ" |
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| Title: Re: Catholic Church Outlawed Slavery, But Nobody Listened |
09 Aug 2005 05:56:47 AM |
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In article <1123573831.053874.315450@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
wordsoftruth114@email.com says...
Since, except for small settlements of Jews, and the Vikings in the
north, everyone was at least nominally a Christian, that effectively
abolished slavery in medieval Europe, except at the southern and
eastern interfaces with Islam where both sides enslaved one another's
prisoners.
You had pagans in Central Europe and Slavic peoples of the East often
turned in slaves. Actually its from the latter group that the word
slaves comes from. I know that Byzantium Empire also had slaves. Venice
was a thriving centre of the slave trade.
So I think that this statement needs editing.
--
The person who is arguing that money is not important almost always is
the person who does not have it.
Observations of Bernard - No 82
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