Posted on 08/31/2014 6:04:39 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
The Catholic appreciation of natural law — as opposed to the Protestant principle of sola scriptura (when Scripture tells slaves to obey their masters) — has always made slavery less reconcilable with Catholicism than Protestantism.The trump card of Protestantism in this debate is of course William Wilberforce and the squadron of the Royal Navy which the British dedicated to the suppression of the slave trade - simply on principle. In fact, the influence of Great Britain in the Nineteenth Century was such that it was able to delegitimate slavery on a global scale. Other Christians, Protestant and Catholic, joined in, but Britain led the movement. The Protestant American South was uniquely situated to be the last ones to get (i.e., be able to hear) the word.For geopolitical reasons Britain was tempted to exploit the division of the US by Southern secession, but Lincoln knew there was a way to prevent that. The Emancipation Proclamation officially made support for the Confederacy support for slavery, and that meant that Britain could not support the Confederacy.
... and then, there’s the crown of thorns woven by hand by Pope Pius IX and sent to Jefferson Davis while he was imprisoned. Pope Pius IX was the only European “prince” to recognize the Confederacy.
This is worth your time:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/julyweb-only/7-14-53.0.html?start=1
Pope Zachary excommunicated Venetian slave traders in 750. Not within your time frame, however.
According to J. Pashington Obeng’s Asante Catholicism: Religious and Cultural Reproduction Among the Akan of Ghana, anyone violating Urban VIII’s letter against slavery in the West Indies and Africa was “automatically excommunicated” (page 112).
Protestants sometimes excommunicated slaves for threatening to flee their enslavement: See Donald G. Matthew, Religion in the Old South (page 147). Nobody’s perfect, right?
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The American South was not solely Protestant. There were substantial Catholic populations in several regions, all Confederate. The areas of resistance, to both the institution of slavery and the Confederacy, were Protestant. Running up the spine of the Appalachians, primarily, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. However, there was a large Quaker presence. They forbade it. As did several other Protestant sects.
The Confederacy was very unpopular in some almost entirely Protestant regions to the point of secession or the attempt to do so. We now have West Virginia for that reason. We almost had a revival of the Free State Of Franklin in western NC and eastern TN due to the same sentiment.
The internet is a learning tool without compare, it's there for the reading, sourced.
“The trump card of Protestantism in this debate is of course William Wilberforce and the squadron of the Royal Navy which the British dedicated to the suppression of the slave trade - simply on principle.”
Well, “simply”? Really? The actual story is more complicated than that.
In 1807, James Stephen wrote a bill that was passed, banning involvement in the Slave Trade with France - which Britain was at war with at the time. Its passage was only possible with the Act of Union in 1800 which allowed 100 Irish MPs into Parliament, most of whom supported abolition - perhaps because they saw something similar to slavery in how Britain treated Irish Catholics. The chances of abolition became even more favourable when William Grenville, who was extremely sympathetic to the views of the anti-slavery committee, became Prime Minister after the death of William Pitt in 1806. Anyway, there were some perfectly “worldly” reasons why Britain abolished - and was able to abolish - slavery: http://abolition.e2bn.org/slavery_111.html
... and then we have religions that are political entities.
http://medicolegal.tripod.com/catholicsvslavery.htm
“They forbade it. As did several other Protestant sects.”
And yet an entire Protestant sect was born of the desire to keep slaves: the Southern Baptist Convention.
“Religions are a man thing. Christianity is a God thing.”
Not exactly - at least according to some Protestant Bibles: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+1:27
“... and then we have religions that are political entities.”
And religions born of adultery: Anglican
Theft and schism: German Lutheranism.
Slavery and greed: Southern Baptist Convention.
Slavery was pretty much a Catholic thing in the new world, 70 to 80% of slaves went to the Catholic areas and countries.
Oh, so we're going tit for tat with the slavery hot potato. How about the entire Caribbean and South America?
Were they (gasp) Southern Baptist? I don't seem to recall that they were, if so. I recall their being ... Catholic. Where did unreconstructed Confederates go after the war? And, what religion controlled those countries? When was slavery finally outlawed in those Catholic countries? It was after the US Civil War, I do know that for a fact.
And, what did Pope Pius IX have to say about the matter? He's oddly absent from certain resources that should hold prior Popes in high regard.
You appear to be slinging whatever sticks against the wall to distract from the central point pertaining to the failings of your particular set of beliefs. Rather provincial, wouldn’t you say, Vlad?
Maybe you didn’t read this reply from above.
“I never said that Tonto. I posted an article about the Catholic Church and slavery. The Catholic Church is made up of men, and as such made mistakes like anyone else. No one is perfect, but you want to tar and feather the Catholic Church for all the sins of the world”.
Here’s a little bit of American history for you. Most Catholics in the United States lived in the Northeast during the slavery days, not the South.
Catholics had a 1,500 year head start on protestants in evangelizing the world. What other religion would it had been? Your statement makes no sense.
The 100 Irish MPs in 1800 would have been Protestants—Catholics were not allowed to hold office in the United Kingdom at that time. Catholic Emancipation did not occur until several decades later.
My statement made total sense, all it said was that slavery was that “”Slavery was pretty much a Catholic thing in the new world, 70 to 80% of slaves went to the Catholic areas and countries.””
Where do you think that 70 to 80% of the slaves brought to the new world went?
IIRC, Taney was a former slaveholder who no longer owned slaves at the time of the Dred Scott decision. The agitation over the slavery question was threatening to tear the country apart and he mistakenly believed that by having the Supreme Court rule as it did in the Dred Scott decision he could calm things down.
According to Peter Russell, Prince Henry the Navigator: A Life, in the law code of Alfonso X of Castile (reigned 252-1284), a person who was an enemy of the faith who was captured in war could be enslaved.
A papal bull of 1436 authorized the Portuguese to make war on Muslims and "other infidels" in Africa. Another bull, in 1455, authorized the conquest and conversion of all of black Africa, enslaving the people, and denying liberty to slaves who converted to Christianity.
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