Does this sound familiar?

[Yahzi]

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_slav2.htm

1865: The 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States ended slavery.
1866: The Holy Office of the Vatican issued a statement in support of slavery. The document stated that "Slavery itself...is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law...The purchaser [of the slave] should carefully examine whether the slave who is put up for sale has been justly or unjustly deprived of his liberty, and that the vendor should do nothing which might endanger the life, virtue, or Catholic faith of the slave." Some commentators suggest that the statement was triggered by the passage of the 13th Amendment in the U.S. Others claim that the document referred only to a "particular situation in Africa to have slaves under certain conditions," and not necessarily to the situation in the U.S.


Hmm... the US government declares the oppression of a particular class of people to be wrong... the Vatican responds with statements supporting the continued oppression... can anybody think of a recent example of this?

;)

[evildave]

Well, let's see...

Not this one... (Secret 1962 Vatican orders to cover up child abuse)
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/08/18/2003064243
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3157859.stm
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/ap/ap_story.html/Intl/AP.V2505.AP-Vatican-Church-.html

Then there's Pat Robertson's support of Charles Tayor in Liberia. Maybe that. The 700 Club LOVES this killer. Of course, that's thought to be mostly about gold.
http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/bal-ed.liberia14aug14,0,1334971.story?coll=bal-opinion-headlines
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed073103b.cfm

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

X'ianity and Slavery

cited for the time line (http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_slav2.htm)

the time line appears to have a Methodist focus

http://www.religioustolerance.org

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by Yahzi
Hmm... the US government declares the oppression of a particular class of people to be wrong... the Vatican responds with statements supporting the continued oppression... can anybody think of a recent example of this?

;) The Catholic Church slow on social reform? No, surely not!

Are you referring to when the Vatican finally admited Galileo was right around the turn of the last century?

[Yahzi]

Originally posted by Upchurch
Are you referring to when the Vatican finally admited Galileo was right around the turn of the last century?
Lol! I was referring to the recent Vatican denuciation of homosexual marriage.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by Yahzi

Lol! I was referring to the recent Vatican denuciation of homosexual marriage. Ooooh. ;) :D

[I'll_buy_that]

"...The purchaser [of the slave] should carefully examine whether the slave who is put up for sale has been justly or unjustly deprived of his liberty, and that the vendor should do nothing which might endanger the life, virtue, or Catholic faith of the slave..."

ok, so I need to carefully examine if a person, who is held against his/her will has been deprived of his liberty? Let me see, what possibly could the answer to that be.. hm...

also, as long as the slave is catholic...

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by Upchurch
Are you referring to when the Vatican finally admited Galileo was right around the turn of the last century? The same Vatican that gave its official endorsement to the first-ever publication of Galileo's Complete Works in 1741, after confirmatory evidence of stellar aberration became available?

People trot out some real chestnuts in this forum.

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by I'll_buy_that
"...The purchaser [of the slave] should carefully examine whether the slave who is put up for sale has been justly or unjustly deprived of his liberty, and that the vendor should do nothing which might endanger the life, virtue, or Catholic faith of the slave..."

ok, so I need to carefully examine if a person, who is held against his/her will has been deprived of his liberty? Let me see, what possibly could the answer to that be.. hm...

also, as long as the slave is catholic... Someone cross-posted Yahzi's comment in another thread, so I'll cross-post part of my response here:As I see it, there are two reasonable ways of approaching this.

The first is to view the 1866 instruction as an anomaly in light of the unbroken line of Catholic authority unambiguously condemning slavery going back at least as far as Thomas Aquinas and continuing through pronouncements in 1435, 1493, 1497, 1537, 1591, 1639, 1686, 1741, 1839, 1888 and 1890.

The second is to consider that the 1866 instruction dealt with the very narrow context of penal servitude, contractual (indentured) servitude and servitude of prisoners captured in just wars (the instruction uses the term servitus, somewhat misleadingly rendered as "slavery" in English), which are obviously distinguishable from the phenomenon of slavery in the United States ... . In this regard I note that the Thirteenth Amendment expressly did not abolish penal servitude.

[Cleopatra]

Although I insist that we must place things, events, ideas and institutions in their historical context, I can't help to remark that I would be very curious to see how Vatican , someday in the future, will justify its attitude towards the Holocaust.