Pope Leo XIV
Morality
Many people don’t get why Pope Leo XIV’s apology for slavery is so important. Some believe he should not have apologized for the church’s role in the African slave trade. Some have even said he did it because he is passing, he is really Black undercover (I am not going to get into that; it is not imporant for this). Yet, the apology, known officially as “Magnifica Humanitas” is going to be an important historical moment decades from now.
If you know the history of the Catholic Church and its role in the African slave trade and in the slave trade in general, the plunder of continents for wealth, empire and destruction, this is kind of a big deal. The Catholic Church is a central player in the slaughter, plunder, and the rape and robbery of non-Europeans persons for centuries now especially during the hottest most brutal period. The church gave its blessing to the depravity through a series of Papal bulls delivered by the Pope. This dates back to the 15th century when the Church’s power base was Portugal and Spain.
In 1452 specifically, Pope Nicolas V of Portugal issued a papal bull justifying via the Church to “capture, vanquish, and subdue all … pagans and other enemies of Christ…to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery … and … to take away all their possessions and property.”
Later, in 1492, the year Christopher Columbus arrived in the Western hemisphere, Pope Alexander VI added to the depraved policy when he issued a papal bull that said to Columbus and other explorers from Europe: “by the Authority of Almighty God…all islands and mainlands found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered, towards the west and south … from the Arctic pole … to the Antarctic pole …. And we…appoint… you and your said heirs …. lords of them with full and free power, authority, and jurisdiction of every kind…”
This unleashed a period of human history of death and destruction humans are just making sense out of without knowing really how to fix anyway. Can it be fixed? Can what happened to millions of people be reconciled and turned around? I don’t know.
We do know that the papal bulls endorsing the destruction of much of the world back then leads to actual public laws and policies that legally justify the taking of lands, the killing of people, and the extraction and control of resources by governments all over the world. European explorers on behalf of governments used it to advance the “Doctrine of Discovery” which is the basis for everything that has happened since as far as imperialism and colonization, the expansion of the West. The United States is a by-product of this madness.
This is why Pope Leo’s small gesture has big meaning and it has be acknowledged. The United States of America, under its current leadership in government, is seeking to bury this story. Persons of decency and good will are hardly surprised. The United States does not exist without those papal bulls.
It is also not surprising that Pope Leo established a moral high ground with his gesture of apology. When I was asked recently by a friend who is a moral voice in the world today, I said: Pope Leo. I am not Catholic either. I do believe this. His humility and clear voice on right and wrong is refreshing and needed at a moment of abject hatred and evil coming from American leadership of its government.