Pope Leo XIV makes historic apology for Holy See’s own role in legitimizing slavery

Key Points:

• Pope Leo XIV issued a historic apology for the Vatican’s role in legitimizing slavery, acknowledging centuries of failure to condemn it and calling it a “wound in Christian memory” in his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas.”
• The pope linked past Church-sanctioned slavery, referencing 15th-century papal bulls that authorized European sovereigns to enslave non-Christians, with modern forms of digital-era exploitation, such as labor abuses in mining minerals for AI technology.
• This apology marks the first time a pope has publicly acknowledged and apologized for the Holy See’s direct involvement in granting authority for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, responding to long-standing demands from Black American Catholics and activists.
• Despite the Vatican’s earlier repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery in 2023, the original papal bulls authorizing conquest and enslavement were never formally rescinded, though a later bull in 1537 opposed enslaving Indigenous peoples.
• Pope Leo, whose family history includes both enslaved people and slave owners, emphasized the need for the Church to condemn all forms of trafficking today to avoid repeating past failures in respecting human dignity.