POPope Leo XIV delivered an unusual apology for the Vatican’s part in justifying slavery, calling the delay in condemning the practice “a wound in Christian memory.”
In a key text warning about the potential of “new forms of slavery” in the digital economy, Leo stated that church institutions kept slaves until the Middle Ages.
“In the early modern period, the Apostolic See of Rome, responding to requests from sovereigns, intervened several times in order to regulate and legitimize forms of subjugation and, in certain cases, the enslavement of ‘infidels,'” he wrote.
It was in the 19th century that “a formal, absolute, and universal condemnation of slavery was clearly articulated,” he said in the text “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity).
“For this, in the name of the church, I sincerely ask for pardon,” Pope Leo wrote.
Popes have previously apologized for Christians’ involvement in the slave trade. John Paul II condemned it in 1992 before expressing a broad appeal for pardon for previous injustices in 2000.
Pope Francis also regularly condemned modern forms of slavery.
However, Leo’s statements went farther, emphasizing the Vatican’s active responsibility in legitimizing slavery.
“It is true that past events cannot be judged anachronistically, as though the moral criteria that matured over time had always been available. Yet, neither can we deny or diminish the delay with which both society and the Church came to denounce the scourge of slavery.
“This constitutes a wound in Christian memory, one from which we cannot consider ourselves detached,” he said.
