Sunday 23 September 2007

Slavery

Just copied this from a comment on The Cafeteria is Closed.

Always good to have those Papal facts to hand.

"From an article in The National Catholic Register (1/24/07):

In 1462 Pope Pius II declared slavery an “enormous crime” (magnum scelus).

In 1537 Pope Paul III forbade the enslavement of native people in the New World.

Pope Urban VIII forbade slavery again in 1639.

Pope Benedict XIV condemned slavery in 1741.

Pope Pius VII demanded the Congress of Vienna suppress the slave trade in 1815.

Pope Gregory XVI condemned the slave trade in 1839.

In the bull canonizing Jesuit St. Peter Claver in 1888, Pope Pius IX branded the slave trade summum nefas or “supreme villainy.”

Pope Leo XIII sent out the encyclical In Plurimism on the abolition of slavery in 1888 ordering Brazilian bishops to abolish slavery."

Yup, that's every century since the 15th.

Unrelated but interesting facts.
Pope Pius XII had 500 Jews staying at Castel Gandolfo during the war whom he was providing with kosher food. (Says so in the CTS Booklet on him.)

And, Castel Gandolfo is twinned with Chateauneuf du Pape. Cool eh! Good wine at their dinners hopefully.

My parents tend to get a bottle of the above mentioned plonk if a Priest comes for meal . Fr Torre was very partial to it and my Mum's Lasagne.

End of wittering. This isn't one of those clever series of statments that ends up where we started.

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