Original Sin?

Quote: Dalex64

People as property
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_slavery

Universally wrong, or OK as long as society says so?

I guess it's ok as long as you treat the human cattle as prescribed by the Bible, and convert them to Christianity and force them to practice it so they won't wind up in Hell for being lazy and sullen their whole enslaved lives.

Quote: Face

History shows these societal morals do indeed change. Doesn't really matter if we're talking church or English towns or Persian monarchs or whatever. What society deems as right and wrong certainly changes and evolves.

Look at the record.

While much is made of the use of black slaves in north America (and rightly so), it seems to be little-known that the vast majority of African slaves were taken to the Caribbean and Central and South America. That's where the Catholic French, Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms had planation colonies. In Haiti there were about 20 slaves for every free person (mostly white, though there were some free black people as well, some of whom owned slaves).

If slavery is a universal moral wrong, and thus the Church has always been against it, we would expect some pope in the time between 1492 and the early XIX century (when most of the Americas gained independence) to have forcefully condemned these three nations for maintaining incredibly large numbers of slaves in their territories.

Is there at least one mild condemnation of the practice by the Church? Any call by the Church to abolish it? Was a single Catholic slave owner excommunicated, or is that "punishment" reserved for truly heinous crimes like divorce?

Slavery was first abolished in Haiti, then known as St Domingue, by one of the governments established in France during the very drawn-out French Revolution.

Keep in mind, too, the conditions for slaves in the Spanish and French plantations went beyond horrendous. How do you figure a population outnumbered by their slaves 20 to 1 keep them from staging a very successful revolt? By resorting to very brutal means of control. I won't mention them in detail, but I'll say crucifying defiant slaves wasn't unheard of.

Any condemnation from the Church regarding that practice?

I know of none.

Quote: Face

This is inarguable fact, proven all through history. My question is how you, personally, handle this divide. It would seem to me that the answer is obvious - you follow the church. But we know the church doesn't have it right, either. Because, as we've seen, the church does follow a societal version of right and wrong. It was always universally wrong to kill, but when it was socially ok, the church did so. Heretics, blasphemers, whatever, they partook up to a certain point. Same thing with imprisonment. It's never OK to imprison someone because they hold a different worldview than you, but at one time, the church did just that.

Doesn't that have any effect on you at all? Or do you find the church's societal view to directly mirror the universal?

I do follow the Church, but not always the men and women who represent it. When men and women in the Church become worldly and infected with the societal morals they abandon Our Lord and the Church's true teaching. It is important to note that the Church herself does not change its teachings in regards to these universal morals. It is the individual practices and even the personal preaching of some Churchmen, including Popes, which strays to the ways of society.

In regards to heretics, blasphemers, whatever we have to be careful we don't judge the past with the perspective of today. Church and state are not so intertwined as they were back in the days and the current ability of people to discover and understand the truth with out our current levels of literacy, education, and internet made the teaching of erroneous ideas not only treason but very insidious. I don't know if it is possible for us today to see the urgency of the use of public punishment and imprisonment. I sure don't understand it, but I might be a little less quick to judge those who lived in a very different time. The most important point here though is this - the universal morals of not killing an innocent or imprisoning people unfairly may not be broken when back in the days heretical thought was much more serious than it is today.

Quote: Nareed

Look at the record.

If slavery is a universal moral wrong, and thus the Church has always been against it, we would expect some pope in the time between 1492 and the early XIX century (when most of the Americas gained independence) to have forcefully condemned these three nations for maintaining incredibly large numbers of slaves in their territories.

Is there at least one mild condemnation of the practice by the Church? Any call by the Church to abolish it? Was a single Catholic slave owner excommunicated, or is that "punishment" reserved for truly heinous crimes like divorce?

Any condemnation from the Church regarding that practice?

I know of none.

Even before 1492 the Church began condemning the practice of racial slavery and the slave trade. There are numerous Papal Bulls or pronouncements about this issue but three in particular to recall are Sicut Dudum by Eugene IV in 1435, Sublimis Deus by Paul III in 1537. and In Supremo by Gregory XVI in 1839. There were also decrees of excommunication in these documents and others for anyone participating in the slave trade.

Here is a link to an informative article The Popes and Slavery

Quote: FrGamble

Even before 1492 the Church began condemning the practice of racial slavery and the slave trade. There are numerous Papal Bulls or pronouncements about this issue but three in particular to recall are Sicut Dudum by Eugene IV in 1435, Sublimis Deus by Paul III in 1537. and In Supremo by Gregory XVI in 1839. There were also decrees of excommunication in these documents and others for anyone participating in the slave trade.

Wow! Two (2) T-W-O whole documents in 500 years!

Are you sure they did not overdo it?

So how many people were excommunicated for reasons relating to slavery in those 500 years? Any at all? The slave trade was alive and causing misery as late as the mid-XIX Century, with the bulk of victims being delivered to Catholic possessions. How many Catholics did the church excommunicate. Come, given TWO papal documents issued during 500 years, I'd expect at least a few documented cases.

By 1839 the abolitionist movement, in several countries, was a growing, if small, phenomenon. By then the church seems to be doing an early jump into the bandwagon.

I should stop peeking. You should pray to Jehovah that I stop peeking. I will only give you more metaphorical rope to hang yourself with.

I should stop peeking too because your not making any sense and your obviously not really reading what I write. In these three examples of many more Church proclamations against the slave trade it is clear that anyone who engages in the slave trade is excommunicated. It is not as if every time someone is excommunicated the Church gives them a certificate or something. In fact the Church technically doesn't excommunicate anyone, they do it to themselves. Whenever someone commits such a grave sin as to warrant excommunication, like engaging in the slave trade, they are automatically excommunicated. I hope this clears some things up and I'm glad you learned something.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/sla_bibl2.htm

That is a collection of passages from the New Testament on slavery.

Quote: FrGamble

Whenever someone commits such a grave sin as to warrant excommunication, like engaging in the slave trade, they are automatically excommunicated.

So you're telling me all the monarchs of Spain, Portugal and France, at the very least, from the late 1400s until the late 1800s were excommunicated and no one ever noticed it?

Remarkable.

Before you launch a rash of rationalizations, I should let you know I'm done peeking.

A lot to read, but it shows the history of slavery by christians and catholics

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_slavery

A papal bull from 1452 authorizing the conquering and state of perpetual servitude for Saracens and pagans
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dum_Diversas


A different pope in 1454 confirming the 1452 authorization

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanus_Pontifex

So cultural and religious slavery was very much a fact of life for catholics for over 1400 years.

It was several hundred years more (there were more affirmations of slavery in the 1700s) until slavery in all of its forms was finally declared to be wrong and immoral.

Quote: Nareed

So you're telling me all the monarchs of Spain, Portugal and France, at the very least, from the late 1400s until the late 1800s were excommunicated and no one ever noticed it?

Remarkable.

Before you launch a rash of rationalizations, I should let you know I'm done peeking.

I thought it was Jews who were the largest slave traders in the new world with owning the largest slave boats?

http://rense.com/general69/invo.htm

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=largest+slave+ships+were+jewish&qpvt=largest+slave+ships+were+jewish&qpvt=largest+slave+ships+were+jewish&FORM=IGRE