Pope Eugene IV, Sicut Dudum, 1435:
We order and command all and each of the faithful of each sex, within the space of fifteen days of the publication of these letters in the place where they live, that they restore to their earlier liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of said Canary Islands, and made captives since the time of their capture, and who have been made subject to slavery. These people are to be totally and perpetually free, and are to be let go without the exaction or reception of money. If this is not done when the fifteen days have passed, they incur the sentence of excommunication by the act itself, from which they cannot be absolved, except at the point of death, even by the Holy See, or by any Spanish bishop, or by the aforementioned Ferdinand, unless they have first given freedom to these captive persons and restored their goods. We will that like sentence of excommunication be incurred by one and all who attempt to capture, sell, or subject to slavery, baptized residents of the Canary Islands, or those who are freely seeking Baptism, from which excommunication cannot be absolved except as was stated above.
Pope Paul III, Sublimis Dei, 1537:
We define and declare by these Our letters, or by any translation thereof signed by any notary public and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical dignitary, to which the same credit shall be given as to the originals, that, notwithstanding whatever may have been or may be said to the contrary, the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect.
Pope Gregory XVI, In Supremo Apostolatus, 1839:
We warn and adjure earnestly in the Lord faithful Christians of every condition that no one in the future dare to vex anyone, despoil him of his possessions, reduce to servitude, or lend aid and favour to those who give themselves up to these practices, or exercise that inhuman traffic by which the Blacks, as if they were not men but rather animals, having been brought into servitude, in no matter what way, are, without any distinction, in contempt of the rights of justice and humanity, bought, sold, and devoted sometimes to the hardest labour. Further, in the hope of gain, propositions of purchase being made to the first owners of the Blacks, dissensions and almost perpetual conflicts are aroused in these regions.
We reprove, then, by virtue of Our Apostolic Authority, all the practices abovementioned as absolutely unworthy of the Christian name. By the same Authority We prohibit and strictly forbid any Ecclesiastic or lay person from presuming to defend as permissible this traffic in Blacks under no matter what pretext or excuse, or from publishing or teaching in any manner whatsoever, in public or privately, opinions contrary to what We have set forth in this Apostolic Letter.
From this history of repeatedly-promulgated and (obviously) repeatedly-ignored papal condemnations of the practice of slavery, we can gain two insights:
1. “Cafeteria Catholicism” is nothing new. Those Catholics who support abortion (either as a “choice” or as a positive right to be guaranteed with public funding), promote research on human embryos, defend torture and capital punishment, twist the just-war teaching beyond recognition to justify preemptive aggression, and insist that health care is not a right (Mark Shea does a good job of dismantling this particular fallacy) are the intellectual heirs of those who in the Age of Exploration defended slavery using various consequentialist and pseudo-scientific arguments, arguments designed to obscure moral truths that should be blindingly obvious to anyone who claims to follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
2. Notice that none of these papal proclamations are made ex cathedra, nor do they ever use the term “intrinsic evil” in reference to slavery. So, to all who claim that Catholics may freely ignore John Paul II’s condemnations of the Iraq War and the death penalty because these statements were merely “prudential judgments” that invoked neither papal infallibility nor the idea of intrinsic evil, are you prepared to acknowledge the validity of a similar argument regarding papal condemnations of slavery? And to all who claim that “individual conscience” invariably trumps the authority of Christ’s Church and its Earthly head when it comes to moral issues (a common claim among pro-abortion Catholic Democrats), are you prepared to argue that Catholic settlers in the New World could still conceivably be called good Catholics even though they continued to hold slaves after being expressly ordered by the Pope to stop?
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