When most people think of the Catholic Church, they imagine a spiritual institution, a moral authority guiding the faithful, and an organization dedicated to charity, education, and spiritual growth.

What is rarely taught—whether in schools, churches, or mainstream history books—is the Church’s deep and troubling entanglement in the transatlantic slave trade. 

For centuries, the Church not only tolerated but actively legitimized and profited from the enslavement of Africans. Its role was not just passive silence but one of endorsement, blessing, and administration of systems that brutalized millions.

This hidden history reveals that the Church was not just a bystander, but a key actor in one of the darkest chapters of human history.

The Early Sanctioning of Slavery

Papal Bulls and Decrees

The Catholic Church’s official involvement in slavery dates back to the 15th century. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, granting Portugal the right to “invade, search out, capture, vanquish and subdue” all non-Christians and reduce them to perpetual servitude. This decree effectively gave Portugal—and later Spain—moral and religious legitimacy to raid Africa’s coasts, enslave its people, and build the first European slave empires.

In 1455, the bull Romanus Pontifex further endorsed Portuguese dominance along the African coasts, encouraging them to take “goods, lands, and slaves” from non-Christian peoples. By 1493, Pope Alexander VI’s Inter Caetera divided the non-European world between Spain and Portugal, effectively blessing colonial conquest and the enslavement of native and African populations.

The Church’s Justifications

The Church justified slavery by framing it as a means of spreading Christianity. Enslaving Africans was rationalized as “saving their souls,” even while their bodies were shackled and their lives destroyed. By equating Africans with heathens or infidels, the Church cloaked the brutality of slavery under the banner of divine mission.

The Church and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Portuguese and Spanish Dominance

With papal blessings, Portugal became the pioneer in the transatlantic slave trade. Portuguese traders captured Africans or bought them from African middlemen, transporting them to plantations in Brazil, the Caribbean, and later North America. The Catholic Church was deeply tied to this process. Missionaries traveled on slave ships, and Catholic orders such as the Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans often received enslaved Africans as donations or used them in their missions.

The Middle Passage and Religious Silence

During the Middle Passage—the horrific journey across the Atlantic where millions of Africans perished—the Church was largely silent. Priests baptized enslaved Africans before voyages, offering “spiritual preparation” but not freedom. Even as ships reeked of death, chains, and misery, the Church maintained its support of the trade, seeing it as both economically and spiritually justified.

The Church as a Slave Owner and Profiteer

Religious Orders and Slave Labor

Far from being merely complicit, the Church itself was a direct participant in slavery. Catholic institutions owned plantations in the Americas, worked by enslaved Africans. Jesuit plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean, for example, operated with slave labor, producing sugar and other commodities that enriched both the Church and European markets.

In the United States, Catholic bishops and religious orders owned slaves well into the 19th century. The Jesuits of Georgetown University infamously sold 272 enslaved men, women, and children in 1838 to finance the struggling institution—demonstrating that even education, the supposed moral pillar of the Church, was built on the backs of Africans.

Church Wealth from the Trade

The Catholic Church also benefited from donations made by slave traders, plantation owners, and monarchs whose wealth came from slavery. Cathedrals, schools, and missions were funded through fortunes accumulated via the transatlantic slave economy. In this way, the Church’s infrastructure was, in part, built upon African suffering.

Atrocities and Cultural Genocide

Spiritual Suppression

Enslaved Africans were often forcibly baptized, their native religions demonized as paganism or witchcraft. The Church demanded total cultural assimilation, erasing African languages, rituals, and traditions. This was not just physical enslavement, but spiritual colonization, designed to strip Africans of their identity.

Dehumanization in Doctrine

While some priests opposed the cruel treatment of slaves, many echoed doctrines that Africans were inferior beings—destined for servitude due to the “curse of Ham” (a biblical misinterpretation used widely to justify racism). Such teachings entrenched white supremacy under religious authority, legitimizing centuries of dehumanization.

Resistance, Contradictions, and Hypocrisy

Early Voices of Dissent

Not all within the Church agreed with the slave trade. Figures like Bartolomé de las Casas condemned the brutal treatment of Native Americans, though controversially he suggested Africans be enslaved instead—a position he later regretted. Some missionaries tried to shield Africans from abuse, but their protests were often drowned out by the institutional Church’s alignment with power and profit.

The Long Silence

Even as abolition movements grew in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Church was slow to denounce slavery. Pope Gregory XVI issued In Supremo Apostolatus in 1839 condemning the slave trade—but this came after centuries of endorsement, and the document stopped short of explicitly condemning slavery itself. Many Catholic clergy in Europe and the Americas simply ignored the papal statement, continuing to defend or profit from slavery.

Legacy and the Long Shadow

Deep Scars in Africa and the Diaspora

The Catholic Church’s role in slavery helped cement systems of racial hierarchy that persist today. The theft of millions of Africans fractured families, cultures, and societies, weakening African states while enriching Europe and the Church. The trauma carried into the Americas, where Catholicism was imposed alongside systemic racism.

Museums, Wealth, and the Silence of Restitution

Today, many Catholic institutions—cathedrals, universities, missions—stand as monuments partially funded by slavery. Yet, there has been little reckoning with this past. Unlike governments that have faced growing calls for reparations, the Church has been slower to address its direct role in slavery’s atrocities.

Modern Reckoning

Apologies and Denials

In 1992, Pope John Paul II apologized for the Church’s role in the slave trade, calling it a sin against humanity. More recently, Pope Francis has spoken of slavery’s evil and the need for historical acknowledgment. However, critics argue that apologies without concrete restitution ring hollow.

Demands for Reparations

In recent years, African and African diaspora communities have pushed for the Catholic Church to not only acknowledge its role but to provide reparations. Some Catholic universities in the United States, such as Georgetown, have begun programs to support descendants of enslaved people sold by the Church. Yet the global Church as a whole has not created a unified system of restitution.

Conclusion-

What they don’t teach you about the Catholic Church and slavery is its depth of complicity. The Church was not merely silent but actively sanctioned, justified, and profited from the brutal enslavement of Africans. By blessing conquests, owning plantations, and shaping racist ideologies, it became one of the institutions most responsible for normalizing slavery in the Christian world.

Today, the legacy of these atrocities lingers in the form of systemic racism, inequality, and the stolen cultural heritage of Africans. To truly confront history, the Church must move beyond selective memory and symbolic apologies. It must reckon with its past by acknowledging the full extent of its role and pursuing restitution for the communities it helped destroy.

Only then can the moral authority it claims be reconciled with the historical truth of its complicity in humanity’s darkest trade.