Published in the bulletin of Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Knoxville, TN, on the 4th Sunday of Easter.
My dear Parishioners,
Peace! There are fourteen (14) “In Brief” articles in the Catechism of the Catholic Church addressing the Seventh Commandment of the Decalogue, ‘You shall not steal.’ The following is a reflection on CCC 2455.
Mother Church, when considering the Seventh Commandment, ‘You shall not steal’ considers all sorts of things, not just simple theft or robbery. What should and should not be bought or sold also falls under this Commandment of God. Among that which should not be bought or sold is the human being as if some mere piece of chattel, no better than any beast of burden. The buying and selling of human beings, as if merchandise, is forbidden by this Commandment. The involuntary servitude which is slavery, is contrary to human dignity.
The Hebrew word ebed and the Greek word soma translate as a servant, bondage, bondman, slave. Scripture relates how Saint Paul was aware that slaves are not mere property which can be treated poorly, told masters to treat their slaves both justly and with kindness (cf. Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 4:1). That Saint Paul teaches slaves to obey their masters (cf. Romans 13:1–7) is not so much an endorsement of slavery as it is an acknowledgment of the fallen state of the world.
Saints Gregory of Nyssa (330–395) in his Fourth Homily on Ecclesiastes and Saint John Chrysostom (347–407) in his Homily on Philmon, Homily on 1 Timothy 17.2, and Homily on John 28.2 both strongly denounced slavery. Pope Eugene IV, in his Papal Bull Sicut Dudum (1435) condemned the enslavement of the peoples in the new colonized Canary Islands, even as it rebuked those engaged in any slave trade. The Dominican Bishop Bartolome de Las Casas (1484–1566) defended the indigenous peoples of Latin America from slavery in his day. Pope Paul III in his Papal Bull Sublimis Deus likewise prohibited the enslavement of the recently baptized in 1537, even imposing a latae sententiae excommunication upon those who would enslave the natives or steal their possessions in the document Pastorale Officium. Pope Benedict XIV in his Papal Bull Immensa Pastorum Principis forbade the enslavement of indigenous peoples of the Americas and other countries on 22 December, 1741. Pope Gregory XVI, for his part, in the Papal Bull In Supremo of 1839 made his own the earlier condemnation of the enslavement of Indians or blacks or any other such person, forbidding clerics and laity alike from any presumption to defend such a terrible mercantile practice. The religious community knows as the Mercedarians were formed in the year 1219 for the purpose of ransoming Christians who were reduced to slavery upon being held captive and imprisoned by the Moorish Saracen followers of Mohamed,. All of this happened in the centuries before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January, 1863. In our own day, the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World – Gaudium et spes, 27, 29 also condemns slavery as an infamous practice which dishonors the Creator.
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr