Pope Leo XIV confronts Vatican’s colonial legacy during Africa visit, spotlighting systemic racism in global Christianity
Original framing: “Pope Leo XIV's visit to an African church linked to slavery reflects on his own complex heritage - AP News” — AP News (via Google News)
The Catholic Church’s role in slavery dates to the 15th century, with papal bulls like *Dum Diversas* (1452) and *Romanus Pontifex* (1455) explicitly authorizing the enslavement of non-Christians. The Jesuits operated slave plantations in Maryland and Haiti, and the Church’s wealth was built on enslaved labor. This history parallels other colonial institutions (e.g., the Dutch East India Company, British East India Company) that used religion to justify exploitation, revealing a pattern of ‘sacralized capitalism.’
Pope Leo XIV’s visit to an African church linked to slavery is not merely a personal reflection but a microcosm of the Catholic Church’s 500-year entanglement with racial capitalism and colonial violence.
The Vatican’s complicity in slavery—through papal decrees, Jesuit plantations, and financial investments—mirrors broader patterns of ‘sacralized capitalism,’ where religion justified exploitation for profit. This history is not confined to the past; its echoes persist in the Church’s wealth inequality, racial hierarchies in the clergy, and the global marginalization of African and Indigenous spiritualities. A systemic solution requires the Church to confront its archives, redistribute wealth, and reform its theology, but this would demand a radical reconfiguration of power that it has historically resisted. The moment calls for a reckoning akin to South Africa’s TRC, but with global scope, and a reparations model that centers the descendants of enslaved Africans—not the institution that enslaved them. Without this, the visit will remain a performative gesture, deepening distrust in a Church that has yet to earn its moral authority.