Standing On Bible Business: Pope Leo Issues…
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It’s a new period at the Vatican, and historical past is being made in the identify of social justice.
In a extremely symbolic transfer, Pope Leo XIV issued a formal apology for the Catholic Church’s direct position in legitimizing slavery, according to AP News reporting. The public penitence marks the first time a pope has explicitly acknowledged the Vatican’s institutional duty in supporting the enslavement of non-Christians during the colonial period. Monday, the Vatican launched Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”), the pope’s first encyclical where the apology was printed.
“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 AP notes that Leo described the Church’s historical past with slavery as “a wound in Christian memory” and requested forgiveness “in the name of the Church” for the struggling precipitated by centuries of religiously sanctioned oppression. Previous popes had apologized for the actions of particular person Christians concerned in the trans-Atlantic slave commerce, but none had straight admitted that past popes themselves helped authorize and legitimize slavery through official papal decrees.
University of Dayton historian Shannen Dee Williams authored a ebook called Subversive Habits about the historical past of Black American Catholic nuns, who embraced the apology as a long-awaited reckoning.
“The Catholic Church has never been an innocent bystander in the history of white supremacy,” said Williams. “Black Catholics have waited a long time to hear the Vatican speak honestly about the church’s leading roles in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery–and thus by extension the enduring systems of anti-Black racism in the world today.”
NewsOne experiences that Pope Leo’s righteous act of accountability didn’t stop with chattel slavery, also linked it to what he called fashionable kinds of exploitation created by the digital age. His encyclical centered closely on the risks of artificial intelligence, warning that unchecked technological development might produce new systems of “digital slavery,” particularly through exploitative labor practices tied to mining uncommon minerals and the focus of energy among tech companies.
While phrases alone aren’t enough, many are praising the apology as a major step toward therapeutic the eternal accidents that have completed unto Black and brown people under the supposed phrase of God.
What say you about this unprecedented mea culpa?
The post Standing On Bible Business: Pope Leo Issues Apology For Vatican Validating Slavery, Calls It ‘Wound On Christian Memory’ appeared first on GWN.
