On Dec. 3, 2000, three Catholic women's religious communities --- the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross and the Dominicans of St. Catherine --- gathered in Bardstown, Kentucky, to apologize for deeds committed more than a century earlier.

All three communities of sisters had owned slaves at one point or another in their histories. The Loretto Sisters had used money from the sale of Mother Ann Rhodes' personal slave to a priest to purchase land for their convent.

These, and similar facts of history regarding the Catholic Church and slavery in the United States, may be unfamiliar to many 21st century Catholics. It is important, then, to know that the connection of Catholic hierarchy, religious communities and laity to the institution of slavery in the U.S. was not unknown or even uncommon in some areas.

While legal slavery ended with the surrender of the South at the conclusion of the Civil War, at least two legacies of slavery --- human trafficking and lingering racial prejudice --- remain realities in American society and indeed throughout the world. And, as we shall see, such practice is clearly relevant to what Catholic believe about the sacredness of life.

Then: Slave-owning bishops
John Carroll, archbishop of Baltimore from 1789-1815, had two black servants; one was a slave, the other free. Patrick Lynch, bishop of Charleston (1857-82) who served as the Confederacy's diplomatic emissary to the Holy See (1864-65), was a slave owner himself and defended the institution of slavery.

In the 1820s, the Jesuits were reported to have had almost 400 slaves working on their Maryland plantations. Similarly the Vincentian Fathers had slaves working for them in their institutions in Missouri in the 19th century.

Slaveholding by Catholics was not limited to clergy and religious. Historical studies by scholars such as Walker Gollar and Thomas Murphy demonstrate a "culture" of acceptance of slavery among lay Catholic populations in some areas of the United States, especially the Southern states. Gollar reports that "lay Catholics [in Kentucky] not only accepted slave labor but also essentially endorsed the institution of human bondage" (Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 84, No.1, pp. 42-62).

Despite the fact that, in 1839, Pope Gregory XVI issued the Bull, In Supremo Apostalatus which condemned the slave trade and colonial slavery, it was received by many Catholics in America, even some bishops with ambiguity.

The pope clearly decreed, "We, by apostolic authority, warn … that no one reduce to slavery Indians, Blacks or other such peoples. We prohibit any Ecclesiastic or lay person from defending as permissible this trade in Blacks under no matter what pretext or excuse…."

However, this was interpreted by some to mean that the "slave trade" was condemned but not slaveholding. Bishop John England of Charleston (1820-42) wrote letters to the Secretary of State suggesting that In Supremo was aimed exclusively at the "slave trade," not at slavery as such.

In fact, both the Jesuits and Vincentians (cf. Church and Slave in Perry County, Missouri, 1818-1865; S. Poole and D. Slawson) chose, at times, to sell their slaves rather than free them. Murphy reports that when the Jesuits sold 272 slaves from their Maryland plantations in 1838, "such great care was taken to guarantee that these new owners [Catholic planters in Louisiana] would care for the religious observance of the slaves that little thought was devoted to their financial qualifications for owning so many slaves. The result was that the slaves sank into great poverty at the hands of incompetent managers who ultimately neglected even the slaves' religious practices" ("Negroes of ours": Jesuit slaveholding in Maryland, 1717-1838). American Bishops never forbade slave-owners to take Communion, even during the Civil War.

Then: Residual bigotry
The legacies of Catholic slaveholding in the United States (racism, prejudice, Jim Crow laws, housing restrictions, and innumerable ugly forms of injustice) were continued, even after abolition and emancipation, in American society in general but even more sadly in the institutional church, particularly in the presence of segregated parish churches and schools tolerated in some dioceses in the United States even up to the time of the Second Vatican Council.

For example, in New Orleans Archbishop Joseph Rummel ordered the integration of Catholic schools only at the beginning of the 1962 school year, nearly 100 years after the Civil War. Even then, it was the culmination of a struggle between Archbishop Rummel and Catholic segregationists, including three local Catholic activists whom Rummel eventually was forced to excommunicate.

In a 1956 pastoral letter, The Morality of Racial Segregation, Rummel wrote, "Racial segregation as such is morally wrong and sinful because it is a denial of the unity and solidarity of the human race as conceived by God in the creation of Adam and Eve."

Another example of the legacy of slavery in the Catholic Church is found in racism institutionalized in the Catholic community in Arkansas. The Autumn 2007 issue of Arkansas Historical Quarterly reports:

"Small in number, Catholics in Arkansas had for decades before the civil rights movement faced suspicion and even hostility from elements of the Protestant majority. Unwilling to aggravate that hostility by challenging segregation, Arkansas' Catholic bishops accepted Jim Crow and practiced it, maintaining separate schools and churches for African Americans and whites.… Although the Catholic Church was a hierarchical institution, in practice its southern bishops often proved reluctant to impose, and some even reluctant to advocate, desegregation because of opposition from many white Catholics as well as the white Protestant majority" (Catholic Church in Arkansas and Desegregation, 1946-1988, Mark Newman).

Now: Forced labor
In March 2009, the owner of two elder care homes in Long Beach pleaded guilty to bringing undocumented aliens into the United States and forcing two of them to work at her businesses.

Evelyn Pelayo, 53, a resident of Long Beach, pleaded guilty to forced labor and unlawfully holding passports to further forced labor. Pelayo owned two residences in Long Beach where she operated elderly care and boarding facilities called Vernon Way Care Home and Walton Care Home.

In a plea agreement filed in federal court, Pelayo admitted that she paid a co-defendant $6,000 to smuggle two undocumented aliens into the United States from the Philippines and then forced them to work at her elder care homes after confiscating their passports and threatening to turn them over to authorities if they attempted to escape.

Pelayo's husband, Darwin Padolina, 56, pleaded guilty to harboring a third undocumented alien for private financial gain. Padolina admitted that he concealed the undocumented alien for 10 years while the person worked as a domestic servant.

"Defendant Pelayo practiced a modern-day form of slavery, coercing employees to work in deplorable conditions for unfair wages," said Loretta King, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.

The moral analysis
It is clear that the behavior of slaveholding Catholics in the past, the acceptance of Jim Crow and segregation in Catholic dioceses and parishes after the Civil War, and the behavior of Pelayo and her husband are contrary to the moral teaching of the Church. But such historical realities offer us an opportunity to review not just the historical context of the Church's condemnation of slavery and every form of racism, but also its contemporary reality.

Despite the dark history, and sometimes magisterial ambiguity with slavery, racism and segregation, the Church's moral analysis is and remains clear. Slavery, racism and segregation in any and all forms are intrinsically evil.

It is immoral for any person to "own" another person for any reason or to segregate persons simply on the basis of race or ethnicity. The fact that every human being is created by God as the imago dei is the surest moral foundation against slavery and indeed, against every form of racial prejudice.

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church reminds us: "God shows no partiality, since all people have the same dignity as creatures made in his image and likeness. The Incarnation of the son of God shows the equality of all people with regard to dignity: 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus' (Gal 3:28; cf. Rom 10:12; 1 Cor 12:13, Col 3:11).

"Since something of the glory of God shines on the face of every person, the dignity of every person before God is the basis of the dignity of every person before every other person. Moreover, this is the ultimate foundation of the radical equality and community among all people, regardless of their race, nation, sex, origin, culture or class" (n. 144).

The Dictionary of Moral Theology also makes the same point: "Conceived and practiced as complete subjection of one person to another, a negation of one's juridical personality, or the deprivation of the essential rights of liberty and autonomy of the human person, slavery is against the natural law" (Cardinal Roberti, p. 1139).

It is clear that slavery and prejudice are intrinsically evil. There are no intentions or circumstances that would justify the ownership of one human being of another. One can see here the same argument used by the Church in condemning the "commodification" of human beings through in vitro fertilization, where embryos are "owned," "frozen" and literally kept, as slaves, on deposit for parents and surrogates.

Perhaps the greatest theological hurdle to many Christians regarding the absolute condemnation of slavery is the letter of Paul to Philemon in which he seems to be encouraging the slave Onesimus to return to his owner and in so doing, essentially, giving the impression of supporting slavery as morally acceptable.

One Catholic biblical professor, Jesuit Father Felix Just, suggests that this may in fact be an inaccurate interpretation of the letter based on false assumptions. Rather than being a "runaway slave" who had fled from his master, Onesimus might be a slave who had been sent on a mission by his master, Philemon. Rather than being in the same jail with Paul by coincidence, he might actually have been sent to assist and care for Paul in jail. Rather than begging Paul to write and ask Philemon not to punish him after returning home, Paul might be taking the initiative in writing to Philemon to ask him to set Onesimus free so he can become a Christian missionary. (Later Christian tradition, after the New Testament, refers to Onesimus as the first "bishop" of the Christian Church in Colossae.)

Thus it could be concluded that rather than being a thief who had stolen something from his master, Onesimus was a "debt slave" and Philemon would lose out if he were set free. Whether one accepts the interpretation of Father Just or the more common understanding that Paul expected the imminent end of the world and thus understood freedom as secondary to salvation, Paul's letter to Philemon loses its ability to be a "proof-text" to defend the moral righteousness of slavery.

Some might ask why it is necessary to review this issue, since slavery is outlawed in the United States. In fact, as we have seen from the case presented above, the tragic reality is that slavery still exists in every country in the world, including the United States, in one form or another.

Human trafficking is perhaps the greatest example of this. Immigrants are too often forced to become indentured servants and even sex slaves. Children of the poor can be sold to become household servants of rich.

Prior to the recent earthquake in Haiti, the Pan American Development Foundation had reported on another tragedy. In Haiti, "almost a quarter of a million children, mostly girls, toil away as household slaves. In some cases Haitian families have purchased child slaves from families poorer than themselves and sold some of their own children to families richer than themselves."

The teaching of the Church and the call of authentic discipleship challenge every Christian to actively participate in the development of a society where slavery in any form, and prejudice against persons is no longer tolerated. The "culture of life" cannot abide any form of assault on the innocent victims of poverty.

Vincentian Father Richard Benson is academic dean and professor of moral theology at St. John's Seminary, Camarillo. His column appears monthly in The Tidings.