this sounds fairly revisionist and doesn’t really match up with much historically. Can you show me this in Catholic doctrine because from the christianization of Rome on it wasn’t abolished and it’s bizarre to me to blame Protestants for slavery. Somehow we are to blame for the behavior of Spain, Portugal and France in the Colonial era? Like, there was slavery during the height of Catholic control from Late Rome on, it still existed, even in Italy where the Vatican dominated and a solid chunk of the land was owned and controlled directly by the Papacy. I’m listening. You aren’t really to my points, seeing as half that whole post was a bunch of random stuff I don’t care about, never said and was never planning to say you just assumed I would.
Can you show me evidence of this for the specific verses in question?
OK, let me get started then. Church leaders as early as the 5th century preached against slavery, on the grounds that it was an immoral act. By the 7th century the Church was actively teaching that keeping slaves was profoundly immoral, and that freeing them was an 'infinitely commendable act' towards salvation. In defiance of remaining Roman-era secular laws banning the practice the Church actively encouraged intermarriage, one of the most prominent cases being Clovis II, King of the Franks, marrying his English slave Bathilda in 649. Bathilda went on to rule the Franks as regent for her son between 657 and when her eldest came of age, constantly campaigning against slavery in her lands. Upon her death she was canonized by the Church explicitly for her stance against slavery.
Charlemagne forbade slavery in his lands, for which he was lauded by the Pope at the time. In the early 9th century, one of the more significant voices of that time, Bishop Agobard of Lyons, preached "All men are brothers, all invoke one same Father, God: the slave and the master, the poor man and the rich man, the ignorant and the learned, the weak and the strong... None has been raised above the other... There is no... slave or free, but in all things and always there is only Christ."
It was the common belief of Christendom under the Church that "slavery in itself was against Divine Law". By the early 10th century the last vestiges of slavery in Christendom was eradicated thanks to the efforts of Saints Wulfstan and Anshelm.
This lasted until the Reformation, when the power of the Papacy and the Church was broken and papal authority no longer was viewed as paramount in moral matters.
Best place to start here in St Thomas Aquinas, who lived in a time where slavery was utterly eradicated and thus wrote of the institution purely on a rational, theoretical basis. He concluded that it was utterly against natural law, that there was no basis in justice for the practice, that it was a manifestly unjust form of authority and thus in no circumstance could it be licit in Christendom.
There were exceptions, Pope Innocent VIII accepted Moorish slaves from King Ferdinand of Aragon. It should be noted that Innocent VIII is a leading contender for worst Pope in history due to his enormous corruption and moral turpitude, and was soundly condemned by all of his successors. Even he had to try and weasel around the existing teachings of the Church by claiming that because the Moors enslaved Christians it was somehow 'retributive justice' to enslave them in turn, a view that was roundly condemned at the time.
During the 1430s when the Spanish first started engaging in slavery in the Canary Islands, Pope Eugene IV issued the papal bull
Sicut dudum condemning the practice and threatening the Spanish with excommunication if the practice continued, but such was the nadir of Papal authority that the practice continued, even in 'Catholic' Spain and Portugal. Pius II and Sixtus IV also issued papal bulls condemning the practice.
With the enslavement of Africans in the New World, Pope Paul III issued a magnificent bull against the practice that has been generally ignored by historians until recently, because it directly contradicts the 'accepted' historical consensus that the Church endorsed slavery or was 'debating' the morality of it on the grounds of whether or not Africans had souls. Note that this was an argument made by Protestants and various slave traders, but never accepted by the Church, and indeed condemned harshly.
[Satan], the enemy of the human race, who always opposed all good men so that the race may perish, has thought up a way, unheard before now, by which he might prevent 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 our Catholic faith. And they reduce them to slavery, treating them with afflictions they would scarce use on brute animals.
Therefore we... noting that the Indians are indeed themselves true men... by our Apostolic Authority decree and declare by these present letters that the same Indians and all other peoples--- even though they be outside the Faith--- ... should not be deprived of their liberty or their possessions ... and are not to be reduced to slavery, and that whatever happens to the contrary is null and void.
In a second papal bull, Paul III imposed the penalty of excommunication on any who enslaved others.
Thanks to papal weakness (in this time Spanish and French troops regularly invaded Rome, the Protestants completely ignored Rome, and the nominally Catholic kings generally ignored anything the Pope said that inconvenienced them) nothing was done, but that didn't stop the Vatican from trying.
Pope Urban VIII reiterated and affirmed Paul III in the bull
Commissum nobis. And the Papal Inquisition in 1686 made the following ruling in the form of questions and answers.
Whether it is permitted to capture by force or by deceit Blacks and other natives who have harmed no one | No |
Whether it is permitted to buy, sell or make contracts in their respect Blacks and other natives who have harmed no one and been made captives by force or deceit? | 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? | 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? | Yes |
It should be noted that the Spanish made it illegal to publish or preach Papal decrees without Royal assent, and they refused to permit the anti-slavery decrees to be preached or published. They also asserted to themselves the right to appoint bishops, bypassing Rome entirely. Despite this, they were read, and the readings generally provoked riots fanned by Spanish authorities against the Church and threats by the Spanish crown against the Papacy.
It should be noted that historians have almost completely ignored all of this. The bulls and teachings were very well known and have been available, but in general the 'establishment' historians ignore their presence when they aren't actively lying about the Church's historical stance against slavery.
Moving past that, I encourage you to actually read the
Code Noir promulgated by the French at the urging of the Papacy, and not the bowdlerized summaries of it you'll find on Wikipedia. Further, I would encourage you to read the
Código Negro Español in the same manner.
It should be noted that most condemnation of the
Code Noir focuses on just 4 articles (3, 12, 13, 38) while ignoring all of the others, especially 39 which explicitly made it a criminal offense to torture or kill a slave. There are records of prosecutions under this article, although it is unknown if any owners were ever executed for violations. This should be contrasted to the treatment of slaves in Protestant areas, where owners faced no legal consequences whatsoever for the treatment of slaves.
The
Código Negro Español went even further, mandating that slaves were to receive a wage, were to be permitted to own property, and would explicitly have the right to purchase their freedom. Moreover slaves were permitted to work for their own profit a certain percentage of the year, and in fact it was customary for slaves to have their own garden plots which they could use to earn funds towards their liberty. Claims that the
Código Negro Español was symbolic run afoul of the minor detail that by 1817 there were more free blacks on Cuba alone than in *all* of Protestant controlled areas combined.
It should also be noted that Catholic churches throughout Spanish controlled areas ensured that slaves could receive the sacraments, including marriage, baptism, etc, and church synods consistently ruled in favor of expanding slave's rights. They constantly preached the basic humanity of slaves, refused to segregate services between slave and free, and even turned manumission into an unofficial sacrament, with the ringing of bells and religious observances.
I don't think I need to go into how different it was in Protestant-controlled areas, like your beloved Confederacy, hrmmm? Where baptizing a slave was a criminal offense, marriage had no meaning and was often a reason for the monsters who called themselves 'Christians' to sell family members to different plantations.
For those who are interested, I strongly recommend the following books. All are by Rodney Stark of Baylor University, but all include extensive references to primary sources which I have checked as well. I recommend Dr Stark for his excellent writing and his willingness to follow the truth down the rabbit hole rather than rest on political correctness.
Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History
Reformation Myths
For the Glory of God: How Monotheism led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts and end of Slavery