Seversky
Posts: 442
Joined: June 2010
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| Quote (Mark Frank @ Jan. 27 2011,07:31) | | Quote (Seversky @ Jan. 27 2011,07:12) | | IIRC, I wrote at least one lengthy (for me) post at UD in which I quoted passages from Papal edicts which clearly permit slavery. This is quite apart from Old Testament accounts of God and His Chosen People condoning and practicing it. |
You don't by any chance have a link to that post or a copy of it. It might save me some time if my little discussion with Stephenb goes on.
Thanks. |
I found two actually. The first is in the Darwin reader: Darwin's racism thread.
The second is in the A Challenge to Evolutionary Biologists thread:
| Quote |
7
Seversky
03/10/2009
10:50 pm
And since Denyse O’Leary believes she is entitled to repeat herself, let me add this list to Allen MacNeill’s and remind ourselves of why, as a self-professed Catholic, she is in no position to adopt a high moral tone given her church’s involvement for centuries in slavery which, let us be in no doubt, was in itself a form of racism:
| Quote | In the fourth century, St. Augustine thought slavery could be beneficial to both slaves and masters;
in 650 Pope Martin I forbade people to help slaves escape;
in 1179 the Third Lateran Council decreed the enslavement of anyone helping the Saracens;
in 1226 Pope Gregory IX incorporated slavery into the Corpus Iuris Canonici (Canon Law), where it remained until 1913;
in the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas considered slavery to be in accordance with natural law and a consequence of original sin;
in 1454 Pope Nicholas V’s bull Romanus Pontifex allowed the King of Portugal to enslave Saracens and pagans at war with Christians;
in 1493, Pope Alexander VI gave the same right to the King of Spain in fighting native Americans; in 1548 Paul III allowed both clergy and laity to own slaves;
in 1866 Pope Pius IX specifically declared that “slavery in 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.” |
…and again..
| Quote | 595 CE: Pope Gregory dispatched a priest to Britain to purchase Pagan boys to work as slaves on church estates.
Circa 600 CE: Pope Gregory I wrote, in Pastoral Rule: “Slaves should be told…not [to] despise their masters and recognize that they are only slaves.”
655 CE: In an attempt to persuade priests to remain celibate, the 9th Council of Toledo ruled that all children of clerics were to be automatically enslaved. This ruling was later incorporated into the canon law of the church.
13th century CE: Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) accepted the teachings of the ancient Greek Pagan philosopher, Aristotle, that slavery is “natural.”
1404 CE: After Spain discovered the Canary Islands the Spanish colonized the islands
In 1435 Pope Eugene IV wrote a bull to Bishop Ferdinand of Lanzarote titled “Sicut Dudum.” In it, he noted that the black inhabitants of the Islands had been converted to Christianity and either baptized or promised baptism. Subsequently, many of the inhabitants were taken from their homes and enslaved. He commanded that all enslaved Christians who were inhabitants of the Canary Islands be freed from slavery. The Pope’s concern appears to have been over the enslavement of Christians by Christians, not the institution of human slavery itself.
1452/4 CE: Pope Nicholas V wrote Dum Diversas which granted to the kings of Spain and Portugal the right to reduce any “Saracens [Muslims] and pagans and any other unbelievers” to perpetual slavery.
1519: Bartholomew De Las Casas, a Dominican, argued against slavery. “No one may be deprived of his liberty nor may any person be enslaved” He was ridiculed, silenced and ignored.
1537 CE: Pope Paul III wrote in Sublimis Deus about the enslavement of persons in the West and South Indies. He wrote that Satan:
“… the enemy of the human race…has thought up a way, unheard of before now, by which he might impede the saving Word of God. … Satan has stirred up some of his allies … who are presuming to assert far and wide that the Indians be reduced to our service like brute animals. And they reduce them to slavery, treating them with afflictions we would scarcely use with brute animals. … Rather, we decree that these same Indians should not be deprived of their liberty…and are not to be reduced to slavery.” only hostile non-Christians, captured in just wars, could become slaves.
1548 CE: Pope Paul III confirmed that any individual may freely buy, sell and own slaves. Runaway slaves were to be returned to their owners for punishment.
1629 to 1661 CE: Pope Urban VIII in 1629, Pope Innocent X in 1645 and Pope Alexander VII in 1661 were all personally involved in the purchase of Muslim slaves.
Late 17th century: The institution of slavery was a integral part of many societies worldwide. The Roman Catholic church only placed two restrictions on the purchase and owning of slaves:
– They had to be non-Christian.
– They had to be captured during “just” warfare. i.e. in wars involving Christian armies fighting for an honorable cause.
Late in the 17th century, Leander, a Roman Catholic theologian, wrote:
“It is certainly a matter of faith that this sort of slavery in which a man serves his master as his slave, is altogether lawful. This is proved from Holy Scripture…It is also proved from reason for it is not unreasonable that just as things which are captured in a just war pass into the power and ownership of the victors, so persons captured in war pass into the ownership of the captors… All theologians are unanimous on this.” |
When challenged to produce any Papal documents which endorsed slavery I found the following passages taken from an English translation of the full text of the Bull Romanus Pontifex issued by Pope Nicholas V, January 8th, 1455:
| Quote | | We have lately heard, not without great joy and gratification, how our beloved son, the noble personage Henry, infante of Portugal,…has not ceased for twenty-five years past to send almost yearly an army of the peoples of the said kingdoms with the greatest labor, danger, and expense, in very swift ships called caravels, to explore the sea and coast lands toward the south and the Antarctic pole. And so it came to pass that when a number of ships of this kind had explored and taken possession of very many harbors, islands, and seas, they at length came to the province of Guinea, and having taken possession of some islands and harbors and the sea adjacent to that province, sailing farther they came to the mouth of a certain great river commonly supposed to be the Nile, and war was waged for some years against the peoples of those parts in the name of the said King Alfonso and of the infante, and in it very many islands in that neighborhood were subdued and peacefully possessed, as they are still possessed together with the adjacent sea. Thence also many Guineamen and other negroes, taken by force, and some by barter of unprohibited articles, or by other lawful contract of purchase, have been sent to the said kingdoms. A large number of these have been converted to the Catholic faith, and it is hoped, by the help of divine mercy, that if such progress be continued with them, either those peoples will be converted to the faith or at least the souls of many of them will be gained for Christ…We [therefore] weighing all and singular the premises with due meditation, and noting that since we had formerly by other letters of ours granted among other things free and ample faculty to the aforesaid King Alfonso — to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit… |
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