In itself, there is nothing wrong with the idea of revising history to suit modern audiences. Too often, the story is told from the perspective of the victors, silencing many voices on the margins. It therefore follows that recovering these voices will provide a more complete view of history, making it more inclusive and shared.
In practice, however, most historical revisionism does the opposite. Instead of adding perspectives and forging a common identity, most revisionist historians reduce history to a narrative for anti-Western intellectuals. This work inevitably involves a good deal of exaggeration and fabrication. For unsuspecting students exposed to this pseudo-scholarship, they know much less about their history, and what little they do know will be factually inaccurate and politically biased.
This is particularly the case when it comes to slavery. Although slavery has affected every known civilization in human history, most Americans today believe that this institution existed in the United States only from 1619 to 1865. And although Christians are at the forefront of the American abolitionist movement, many Americans are often taught that most Certain forms of Christianity tolerated and legitimized slavery. This is partly why slavery is called America’s “original sin,” as if it were a unique struggle waged by Americans incapable of defending the freedom of their people, and not of a universal problem affecting all nations undergoing mass industrialization and liberalization.
To set the record straight, Paul Kengor wrote The worst indignity: the Catholic Church on slavery. Half of the book examines the history of slavery over the past 2,000 years; the other half functions as a rebuttal to the historical revisionism that has distorted so many people’s understanding of slavery. In both respects, Kengor not only succeeds in debunking popular lies about the Church and slavery, but he also powerfully demonstrates that Christianity was entirely necessary to end slavery in the West.
Inherent dignity
Kengor begins his argument with the myth that no one, Christian or otherwise, really addressed the problem of slavery until the 19th century: “I have found countless statements by scholars insisting that slavery The Catholic Church did not take the time to recognize the harms of slavery until the 19th century. late 19th century or early 20th century. Rather, Kengor is able to cite the countless instances where Church leaders issued statements condemning the enslavement of European settlers as early as the 15th century, as well as statements condemning slavery in general beginning in the 6th century.
As Kengor explains, there was never a time when the Church approved slavery because it went against the very message of the Christian gospel. It began in pre-Christian times, when God commanded the pharaoh through Moses to “Let my people go!” » After this, God continued to prescribe limits on slavery, thus distinguishing Israel from its neighbors. These Old Testament events laid the foundation for Jesus’ work to free souls from sin and death. Slavery thus takes on a spiritual dimension as well as a physical one. It is true that some “pro-slavery Bible preachers have cherry-picked verses, quoting them very selectively and distorting them according to their perverse preferences”, but most Christian churches, especially the Catholic Church, have provided the required context for these verses to guard against such interpretations.
In contrast to this, slavery was commonly practiced in non-Christian cultures where the inherent dignity and value of human life was not a given. Dispelling the idea that slavery was introduced by Christians in the places they colonized, Kengor evokes counter-examples from all continents. Native Americans in the Americas engaged in slavery as well as human sacrifice. Ancient Chinese dynasties practiced slavery for millennia – the construction of the Great Wall alone cost the lives of “four hundred thousand, perhaps more than a million” slaves. And slavery was and still is prevalent in many parts of Africa and the Muslim world.
Of course, two wrongs do not make a right, and slavery in non-Christian societies does not excuse slavery in Christian societies. Recognizing this, Kengor considers the slave-owning groups most notorious in the popular imagination: the American founding fathers and the first Europeans to colonize the New World.
Although most of the founding fathers were not Catholic, they all shared the Christian view that slavery was evil. The most proactive abolitionist among them was John Jay, the first governor of New York and one of the authors of the Federalist Papers. He was nicknamed “America’s Wilberforce” for his ardent advocacy for the end of slavery in New York. Alongside Jay, Ben Franklin, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton were also vocal critics of slavery.
As for Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who owned slaves, they were well aware of their own hypocrisy. Kengor does not deny it but explains that their situation forced them to choose between the abolition of slavery or the creation of a country. While Washington freed his slaves upon his death, Jefferson contributed to the abolitionist cause by establishing freedom as an inalienable right in the Declaration of Independence: “(Jefferson) may be a personal failure on slavery, but politically , and even morally, his accomplishment on July 4, 1776 was monumental, whether he personally owned slaves or not. Both 19th-century abolitionists and 20th-century civil rights activists would base their arguments on Jefferson’s famous words.
Unfortunately, the greatest practitioners of slavery in the Western Hemisphere, the Catholic kingdoms of Portugal and Spain, cannot make the same redemptive demands. Kengor therefore juxtaposes their abuses with the objections of the Catholic Church, which were early and frequent. Starting with the papal bull of Pope Eugene Sicut Dudum in 1435, which denounced the African slave trade in the Canary Islands, popes and missionaries were constantly at odds with imperial colonizers who had little or no respect for the indigenous peoples of South America or Africa. Obviously, the classic film “The mission”, which beautifully dramatized the conflict between Jesuit missionaries and Spanish conquistadors, was a common occurrence in the South American colonies.
Kengor then pairs the list of official statements from various bishops and popes with brief accounts of major Catholic figures in the fight against slavery, many of whom were saints. Starting with Saint Onesimus in the first century AD, he highlights heroic Catholics who were themselves slaves, such as Saint Felicity and Saint Patrick, or liberators like Saint John of Matha and “the Ransomman” Saint Peter Nolasco. After that, he tells the stories of later Catholics like St. Peter Claver and Blessed. Francisco de Paul Victor, who actively fought against slavery in South America.
It must be said that although these middle chapters detailing these texts and these holy men provide strong support for Kengor’s argument, they become tedious after a while. From a historical perspective, Kengor’s thoroughness effectively illustrates a coherent pattern of Church policy and drowns out any opposing assertions, but from a narrative perspective these subsections begin to seem repetitive. It would have been preferable if this information had been condensed and the many relevant block quotes included in an appendix.
That said, if readers can get through these chapters, they will be treated to the best part of the book, Kengor’s biographies of three former slaves from the 19th century: Ven. Pierre Toussaint, Ven. Augustus Tolton and Saint Josephine Bakhita. In the stories of these three people, we can finally see the liberating and empowering force of the Christian gospel at work in homes and communities.
Toussaint was a Haitian slave who moved to New York, made a small fortune becoming a hairdresser, and paid off his master and mistress’s debts once he was free. Tolton was an American slave from Missouri who eventually became the first black priest in the United States. Bakhita was a slave in Sudan who eventually moved to Italy and joined a religious order in Italy. Although they were all victims of racial discrimination, their faith and their Christian brothers allowed them to rise above this discrimination.
Preserving the story
Finally, Kengor concludes his argument with a discussion of modern slavery and racist ideologies today. According to a recent study, “40.3 million people in the world live in slavery today, and 89 million in total over the past five years.” As in previous centuries, the Catholic Church continues to lead the charge in denouncing this injustice. Pope Francis continually raises this issue in his speeches and encyclicals, while many other writers and journalists do the same.
So why isn’t this getting more attention from today’s self-identified anti-racists? Kengor suggests that their Marxist commitments will not allow this. It is more important to preserve the narrative of white oppressors exploiting non-white victims than to recognize the millions of souls who do not fit that narrative. At this point, Kengor has more than proven how hypocritical, ahistorical, and seriously immoral these people are for maintaining this fiction at all costs.
Overall, Kengor’s book is an important book that succeeds in its mission to correct the many errors of today’s historical revisionists and to convincingly demonstrate that conversion to Catholicism (or at least adoption of his wisdom and example) is the best way to combat slavery and racism. . The story may be complex, but the facts are clear: Christians were the real anti-racists.
