A Factual Note of Encouragement: Changemakers Do Effect Change in the Roman Catholic Church

Some people criticize our work for women’s equality in the Church by insisting that the Church never changes and that it is therefore pointless to spend energy even hoping for change.

This perspective fails to account for the fact that our Church’s history shows many changes that have happened because of the persistence of those who work for justice. The change in Church teachings on slavery provides just one example. The following historical chart shows the evolution in Church teachings about slavery. At one time, the hierarchy condoned slavery. Not so today (though it was not until Vatican II that a conclusive, outright denunciation was made of it.)

Paying attention to this timeline will also help us remember that although at times it may seem like things are going backwards, it is often a few steps forward, then one or two back which in the end add up to slow but sure advance towards progress. If it is was this was for slavery, so it can also be for women.

362 AD: The local Council at Gangra in Asia Minor excommunicates anyone encouraging a slave to despise his master or withdraw from his service. (Became part of Church Law from the 13th century).

354-430 AD: St. Augustine teaches that the institution of slavery derives from God and is beneficial to slaves and masters. (Quoted by many later Popes as proof of "Tradition".)

650 AD: Pope Martin I condemns people who teach slaves about freedom or who encourage them to escape.

1089 AD: The Synod of Melfi under Pope Urban II imposed slavery on the wives of priests. (Became part of Church Law from the 13th century).

1179 AD: The Third Lateran Council imposed slavery on those helping the Saracens.

1226 AD: The legitimacy of slavery is incorporated in the Corpus Iuris Canonici, promulgated by Pope Gregory IX which remained official law of the Church until 1913. Canon lawyers worked out four just titles for holding slaves: slaves captured in war, persons condemned to slavery for a crime; persons selling themselves into slavery, including a father selling his child; children of a mother who is a slave.

1224-1274 AD: St.Thomas Aquinas defends slavery as instituted by God in punishment for sin, and justified as being part of the ‘right of nations’ and natural law. Children of a slave mother are rightly slaves even though they have not committed personal sin! (Quoted by many later Popes).

1435 AD: Pope Eugenius IV condemns the indiscriminate enslavement of natives in the Canary Islands, but does not condemn slavery as such.

1454 AD: Through the bull Romanus Pontifex, Pope Nicholas V authorises the king of Portugal to enslave all the Saracen and pagan peoples his armies may conquer.

1493 AD: Pope Alexander VI authorises the King of Spain to enslave non-Christians of the Americas who are at war with Christian powers.

1537 AD: Pope Paul III condemns the indiscriminate enslavement of Indians in South America.

1548 AD: The same Pope Paul III confirms the right of clergy and laity to own slaves.

1639 AD: Pope Urban VIII denounces the indiscriminate enslavement of Indians in South America, without denying the four ‘just titles’ for owning slaves.

1741 AD: Pope Benedict XIV condemns the indiscriminate enslavement of natives in Brazil, but does not denounce slavery as such, nor the importation of slaves from Africa.

1839 AD: Pope Gregory XVI condemns the international negro slave trade, but does not question slavery as such, nor the domestic slave trade.

1866 AD: The Holy Office in an instruction signed by Pope Pius IX declares: Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contary to the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery, and these are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons … It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or given".

1868: Josephine Bakhita is born in Sudan. (see panel right)

1877: At around the age of 9, Josephine is sold into slavery. She is sold and resold many times.

The turn around

1888 AD: Pope Leo III condemns slavery in more general terms, and supports the anti-slavery movement.

1918 AD: The new Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope Benedictus XV condemns ‘selling any person as a slave’. (There is no condemnation of ‘owning’ slaves, however).

1965 AD: The Second Vatican Council defends basic human rights and denounces all violations of human integrity, including slavery (Gaudium et Spes, no 27,29,67).

Today the Church works to end the scourge of human trafficking.

Shedding Light on Church Teachings

Some believe that the Catholic Church will not change its teachings because it fears giving the impression that a previous pope may have been in error. Bishop Raymond A. Lucker compiled a list of at least 65 teachings of the church that were once taught as authoritative teachings, but which have since been changed.

WOW member group, Wijngaards’ Institute for Catholic Church provides a comprehensive document about this on their website womenpriests.org.

For more, see here: Shedding Light on Church Teachings

Another helpful document is here: Teaching Authority and Errors in Presumed Doctrine

St. Josephine Bakhita

The feast of St. Josephine Bakhita is celebrated on February 8. She was born in Darfur, Sudan in 1869. At the age of 7 or 9 years old she was kidnapped, sold into slavery, and given the name Bakhita. After being sold several times and enduring such brutal treatment that she could no longer remember her true name, she ended up in Venice taking care of an Italian family’s child. When the family had to take care of some business back in Africa, they left Bakhita and their daughter with the Canossian Sisters of Charity. Bakhita would say later that the moment she walked through the Sister’s doors she felt she had returned home.

When the Italian family returned for Bakhita and their daughter, Bakhita refused to go with them. Despite the family’s protestations, it was determined that Bakhita was a free woman according to Italian law and they could not force her to accompany them. She was baptized Josephine in 1890 and became a Canossian Sister in 1896. After 50 years of ministry she died on February 8, 1947 at a Canossian Convent surrounded by her fellow Sisters.

In 2000, she was canonized by Pope John Paul II who declared: “The history of her life inspires not passive acceptance but the firm resolve to work effectively to free girls and women from oppression and violence and to return them to their dignity in the full exercise of their rights.” Her feast day is recognized as a day of prayer for an end to human trafficking around the world.

In the beginning of his second encyclical letter Spe Salvi (In Hope We Were Saved), Pope Benedict XVI relates her entire life story as an outstanding example of the virtue of hope.

May Josephine pray for our work that we may continue to move forward with firm resolve to work effectively to return women to their dignity in the full exercise of their baptismal equality in all sacraments of the Church.

________________________________

Pope Pius Ix

Pope Pius IX, while condoning slavery, condemned freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of worship and salvation outside the Church. In all these doctrines he has been proved wrong by the Second Vatican Council.