Pope Leo XIV Apologizes for the Holy See’s Own Role in Legitimizing Slavery
Leo said the church must condemn new forms of trafficking tied to artificial intelligence and asked pardon for centuries of silence.
- On Monday, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas," issuing a historic apology for the Vatican's role in legitimizing slavery and failing to condemn it for centuries.
- A series of 15th-century Vatican directives, including the papal bull "Dum Diversas" issued in 1452, authorized Portuguese sovereigns to "invade, conquer, fight and subjugate" non-Christians and reduce them to perpetual slavery.
- The U.S.-born Pope, whose family history includes both enslaved people and slaveholders according to genealogical research, connected the trans-Atlantic slave trade to modern "forms of slavery" fueled by unregulated labor for AI chips.
- Leo responded to decades of calls by Black American Catholics, activists, and scholars for the Holy See to atone for its colonial-era role—the first time a pope has publicly acknowledged the Vatican's direct involvement in authorizing subjugation.
- Stating "This constitutes a wound in Christian memory," Leo warned the Church must condemn modern trafficking to avoid needing future pardons, emphasizing respect for human dignity as essential to Christian faith.
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We cannot deny or diminish the importance with which the Church and society condemned the scourge of slavery, the Pope said.
Pope Leo apologizes for Church's historic role in slavery
Pope Leo on Monday issued the clearest apology yet from a pontiff for the Catholic Church's role in slavery, acknowledging both its delay in condemning the practice and its historic involvement in legitimizing it.
Pope Leo says Catholic Church's legitimizing of slavery is a wound
Pope Leo XIV apologized on Monday for the Catholic Church’s legitimization of slavey, saying the delay in denouncing the practice was a “wound in Christian memory.” Leo, the first American pope, released his first encyclical, titled “Magnifica Humanitas.” The 43,000-word manifesto focused on the rise of artificial intelligence and how the church should respond to protect human dignity in the digital age. “A significant part of the digital econom…
Pope Leo XIV makes historic apology for Vatican’s role in legitimizing slavery - The Boston Globe
History’s first US-born pope, whose family history includes both enslaved people and slave owners, delivered the apology in his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas.”
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