Slavery And The Catholic Church

Largely the Catholic faith chose to neglect the effects of slavery, and their stance on the issue, because slavery benefited many of the organization’s personal finances. Who wants to admit that they messed up, especially a powerful religious institution tasked with upholding of the moral standard for a vast standing of followers? “The Catholic social teaching promotes the idea that as a human being, made from the image of God we have an inherent dignity, which should be respected quite opposite of the exact nature of slavery, which by definition is dehumanizing (USCCB).” I wish to examine the many ways Maxwell shows in, Slavery and the Catholic Church, how slavery was not recognized within the institution of the Catholic Church. Seeing how
Slaves didn’t have much education and legally couldn’t testify in court so their opinions and self-worth were not respected. All of the things that the Catholic teachings say are opposite of how slaves were treated. But they weren’t even seen as humans so I do not know how these things apply to them. There aren’t any things in which blacks and whites were equal with when slavery was going on. The treatment of slaves was horrendous and it made it known that the slaves were treated as less than
Paul).” Even though slaves weren’t counted as humans they are God’s creation because where else could they have come from. Who else could have created slaves? Catholic social teaching says that we are our brothers and sisters keepers wherever they are. This is hard for me to take seriously because so many Catholics had slaves so these teachings are going against everything that slavery is. There is also a close relationship between peace and justice in Catholic social teaching which a contradictive statement is also because there was no peace or justice with slavery. We were all created free but because of sin slavery came into the world as a punishment. Everyone knew slavery was bad but didn’t want to admit it because it benefited everyone in the long run. There was talk of emancipating slaves but not all slaves, only those who were sincere in converting to Christianity or that way of life. Most slaves didn’t believe in Christianity though they pretended to so that they could earn their freedom. They had their own religions normally which they still held to be true. It must have been hard for them to learn a whole new way of life and a whole new culture. The Christians knew what they were doing when they put passages in the bible to make slaves obey them and not