Commonweal

Georgetown's Sins & Ours

How Institutions Repent

The Editors September 6, 2016 - 3:52pm

It was in John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor that the church first spoke of slavery as an “intrinsic evil.” In the New Testament, slavery is an accepted fact of life, and being a slave or slave owner was no barrier to becoming a Christian. The early church was easily reconciled to what was then a nearly universal practice. The slave was often thought of as just another spoil of war. Jesus nowhere speaks against slavery, and St. Paul commands slaves to be obedient to their masters. Although modern popes eventually condemned the slave trade, earlier popes had owned slaves themselves. Historically, the church taught that slavery might be regrettable but did not violate natural law. Slaves must be treated humanely, but it was not immoral for a Catholic to own another human being.

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