POPES AND SLAVERY, THE

POPES AND SLAVERY, THE

The question is often asked, “Why did the Church not speak up more decisively to halt the infamous trade in human flesh which subjected so many millions to the infamy of slavery from the time shortly after the discovery of America to the late 1800’s?” The answer, as this book reveals through the very documents of the Church itself dating back to 1404 and the Spanish conquest of the Canary Islands, is “It did!” More to the point is the question, “Why did not more people heed the pleas which came from Rome, accompanied by repeated threats of excommunication, to halt this practice?” In his well-documented presentation of the facts, Father Joel Panzer shows how the misreading of history has led some in our day and age to downplay the very active and consistent role of the Roman Pontiffs in trying to halt and to reverse the growing practice of owning and trading slaves not only in America but in Brazil, the Philippines and elsewhere as well. Following an introduction in which the state of the question is clearly laid out, he proceeds to document in one-hundred-year segments the actual role of the Church in opposition to slavery. A chronology of events and several appendices which contain, in Latin and English, the actual texts of the documents of the Papal Magisterium and the Holy Office, along with an important address of the present Holy Father given on the occasion of his visit to the infamous “Slave House” in Gorée, Senegal, round out this highly readable and informative text.

About the Author: Father Joel S. Panzer was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska in 1994. He studied philosophy at St. Philip’s Seminary, Toronto, and theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, New York, where he received a Master of Arts degree in dogma. He was assigned as the assistant chaplain of the Newman Center of the University of Nebraska where he was engaged in campus ministry, teaching high school religion and serving as the assistant vocations director. Fr. Panzer is presently the parochial vicar at North American Martyrs Parish in Lincoln.