Pope Leo asks for forgiveness for Catholic church's role in the transatlantic slave trade

IRELAND, May 25 — Pope Leo XIV made a historic apology for the Holy See's role in transatlantic slavery, as well as the failure to condemn it for centuries. The pope issued the historic message on Monday, in his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), in which he called the Vatican's record a “wound in Christian memory. ” Encyclicals are one of the highest forms of teaching from a pontiff to the Church's 1.

4 billion members. This marks the first time a pope has publicly acknowledged and apologized for the roles past popes played in giving European monarchies explicit authority to conquer and enslave “infidels. ” Leo’s message of publicly acknowledging the Holy See's role in the transatlantic slave trade addressed long-standing calls from Black American Catholics, activists, and scholars for the institution to make amends for its involvement.

“It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord,” Leo wrote. “For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon. ” The pope also acknowledged that Pope Leo XIII’s condemnation of slavery in 1888 came long after multiple countries had already abolished it.

In ancient times and the Middle Ages, even churches had enslaved people. In acknowledging the Holy See’s own role and the 15th-century papal bulls, Leo wrote: “Already in the early modern period, the Apostolic See of Rome, responding to the requests of sovereigns, intervened several times in order to regulate and legitimize forms of subjugation, and, in certain cases, including the enslavement of ‘infidels. ’” The pope also acknowledged that Pope Leo XIII’s condemnation of slavery in 1888 came long after multiple countries had already abolished it Leo stated that judging the morality of decisions by today's standards is not possible.

“Yet neither can we deny or diminish the delay with which both society and the church came to denounce the scourge of slavery,” he said. The pope said that the church has long affirmed the dignity of every human being as the basis of its doctrine, “even if it took eighteen centuries for its full incompatibility with slavery to be explicitly recognized. ” The nearly 43,000-word document addressed AI as a prominent theme and related the transatlantic slave trade to modern-day exploitation driven by the technological revolution, including the use of unregulated labor to mine rare minerals for AI chips.

"In some regions of the world, children and adolescents work in dangerous conditions, crushing the materials from which rare earth elements are extracted," wrote the pope. "The bodies of these people are scarred, injured, and worn down so that computational flow may continue uninterruptedly," he said. "This reality deeply challenges the moral conscience of our time.

" Leo said that the modern church must strongly condemn all forms of trafficking related to the digital technological revolution “if we want to avoid the need to ask for pardon again in the future for having failed to respect the treasure of human dignity that is required by our faith. ” Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, comes from an ancestry of enslaved people and slave owners. Genealogical research published by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

shows that 17 of Leo’s American ancestors were Black, and are listed in census records as mulatto, Black, Creole, or a free person of color.