Enduring Legacy (Church and Slavery part 1)

One of the beautiful things about the Catholic Church is that you can trace her exist back to the apostles. There is a lineage of sharing and sacrificing for the Gospel. We know where we come from. We are connected to the long line of Christians, throughout times and places, that shared in being members of the Church.

But that long line is also tainted by those who failed to live up to the Gospel. We are connected to people who did horrible things and used the name of Christ to justify them. And not just individual Catholics, but leaders in the Church, and the institution itself. How can the Church hold the summit of truth and be fed by the Body of Christ and still fail to care for every soul? Why are there so many instances of the voices calling for justice and dignity being drowned out by the lust for wealth, power, and comfort? What do I do about being connected to this lineage of abuse and failure? It makes me angry and sad.

Recently, I’ve been reading about the early European voyages to the New World. There are explorers seeking fame and fortune, willing to kill and enslave natives. There are missionaries moved to share the Gospel in these “unknown” lands and defend the natives’ humanity. There are families seeking a refuge from European turmoil. There is disease unintentionally devastating native populations. And sometimes people where in multiple camps—coming to seek shelter, willing to share the Gospel, yet still participating in barbarous acts of pillaging, raping, enslaving, and killing.

And it has got me thinking about the Church’s response at the time. Why wasn’t their outrage or directives against brutality and enslavement? Did bishops and popes not see evil? Was the institutional Church too tied up to the political climate to stand firm for the rights of all? What good is a kingdom of God if it is indistinguishable from any other kingdom?

So, the next few posts are going to be about the Church’s reaction to, and participation in, slavery. There are a few heroes, a lot of villains, and a lot of nameless people whose lives, dignities, and souls were discarded along the way.

To begin with, slavery has existed for almost as long as human history, and in almost every culture in some manner. Often criminals, debtors, or captures of war would be enslaved (or indentured until debts were paid). Sometimes whole classes of people were slaves for life. It was often just a fact of life that slavery existed in some form or another. The Bible has a lot to say about how slaves are to be treated well, but it doesn’t condemn slavery as an institution. The Israelites celebrate their freedom from Egypt and Babylon, yet they too enslave debtors and those captures in war.

The New Testament again instructs masters to treat slaves well, but it also instructs slaves to obey their masters, not to fight for liberation. It all sounds frustratingly anti-abolitionist. Yet the New Testament does include the radical idea that slaves and freed people are equal in soul. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). Paul repeats several times this idea of equality among Christians. All are made in the image of God, all are worthy of baptism, and all are able to be saved. It is not a full denunciation of the existence of slavery, yet it does set the precedent of seeing a slave as an equal in Christ, and, in time, seeing a slave as an equal in every way, worthy of freedom and life.