“In Spite of My Repugnance…” (Church and Slavery part 6)

Although there were Catholics advocating for native American peoples and the abolition of slavery, as European conquest of the New World grew, Catholics also continued to participate in the slave trade, including religious orders and diocesan bishops.

Jesuits of Georgetown University used slavery on campus

Jesuits were among the first English colonists to Maryland in 1634. By 1717, there are records that the order owned slaves, although it’s believed they owned slaves as early as 1660. At the start of the eighteenth century, about 24% of the population of the colony was enslaved. The English Catholics settlers were wealthy, and they sometimes “gifted” the Jesuits land and slaves. I don’t know how much the Jesuits questioned the morality of owning people, particularly of a group who vows poverty to own people. At the same time, Catholics faced their own oppression from the English during this time. The Church of England was the official church, and several laws limited Catholics in the early 1700s. You would think this would have made them more sensitive to the idea of freedom and equal rights.

There were those positing the immorality of slavery in the American colonies at the time. A group of German and Dutch Quakers in Pennsylvania published a statement promoting the universal rights of all people in 1688. Some colonies (Rhode Island and Georgia) even outlawed slavery early in their founding, only to succumb to allowing it within decades. I point this out because I think, at least for me, we think that slavery was an accepted way of life until the 1800s, but there were people advocating for abolition much earlier. And there were even more who maybe thought some forms of slavery acceptable (like “just” slavery of criminals or debtors) but opposed the racially-based, generational, slave trade of the Americas.

The Jesuit Plantation Project has some really good research regarding the Maryland Jesuits and slavery: https://jesuitplantationproject.org/s/jpp/page/welcome The Jesuits came to own hundreds of slaves across several states. In 1838, when many states and countries had outlawed slavery, the Jesuits did not free their slaves; they sold 272 people to owners in Louisiana to pay off debts.

Other orders who owned slaves in the U.S. include the Visitation Sisters (MD), the Carmelites of Baltimore (MD), the Sisters of Loretto (KY), the Dominicans of St. Catharine (KY), the Capuchin Brothers (LA), the Ursuline Sisters (LA) the Religious of the Sacred Heart (LA, MO), and the Sisters of Charity (MD, KY). St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, founder of the Sisters of Charity, came from a family who owned slaves. St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, wrote in 1822, “In spite of my repugnance for having Negro slaves, we may be obliged to purchase some.” She was a sister of Religious Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and founded their first communities in America (LA, MO, KS). In 1823 the society purchased a man for $550. (All these orders have since formally apologized for their pasts and taken various steps toward reconciliation.)

Individual clergy owned slaves too, including Bishop Louis DuBourg (Louisiana and Two Floridas), Bishop John Carroll (Baltimore), Bishop Joseph Rosati (St. Louis), and Bishop Patrick Lynch (Charleston). Wealth and social status seems to have been more influential in their personal decisions than the responsibility of caring for Christ's sheep and inheriting the mission of the apostles.

Several orders worked to offer aid/education/religious instruction to slaves or free blacks, yet still had slaves themselves. Many were the first to support black schools and orphanages in the decades following emancipation. I can’t get over the disconnect. They probably truly saw themselves as protectors, doing good charity, and caring for black populations. Yet they somehow made justifications for subjugating humans. Wealthy women brought slaves with them when they joined orders. They accepted slaves as donations or tuition payments. The slaves built churches and schools; the sale of slaves funded those buildings and missions. Like so much of America, the earliest Catholic institutions here used enslaved labor to establish and build up themselves. It’s hard to look at all the good the Church and its religious orders do and then think about those times. Ends don’t justify means. Saving souls doesn’t cancel out abusing others. Each soul is valuable and indistinguishable. Each enslaved person deserved basic human dignity and freedom. It wasn’t justifiable, yet again and again, justification was found.

And while not to the level of institutionalized slavery, it does make me reflect on what justifications we use today, both for immoral institutions and individual sins. There is always an excuse, because we rather hold onto our pleasures, our wealth, or our privilege than doing the hard work of giving up sin and atonement. We want to completely demonize those that justified slavery, but they were a mix of good and evil, like all of us. What they did was terrible, and it was systematic and mostly unrepentant. But they are not as different as sinners of every age. Would I have bought into the justifications for slavery 200 years ago? I don't know. Quite possibly. It's shameful but true. But more shameful would to be to pridefully pat myself on the back for condemning slavery in 2021 and not reflecting on what sins in my own place and time I seek to justify.