Pope Leo XIV hits several historical and modern “dogs” with the “Magnifica Humanitas” encyclical
Commentary by Chitown Kev
I’m not Catholic but a significant portion of my education occurred at Jesuit-affiliated schools (middle school and university). I’ve worked for a couple of Catholic Church-affilated organizations. The first rehab house that I entered for alcohol and drug abuse was Catholic-affiliated. That exposure has allowed me to have more than a passing familiarity with the teachings of the Catholic Church (I was in the church choir in middle school!). My studies at Loyola University included three required theology courses and my major and “almost-minors” included sprinkles of Catholic teachings.
To this very day, I think that I should have chosen a vocation as a monk (not necessarily a Catholic-affiliated monk but that influence is there…and for all I know, perhaps I’ve made that very choice already, in a sense).
Because of that background, I have more than a passing interest in the goings-on and world interactions of the hugely-flawed Catholic Church despite not being Catholic.
And as a Black American, I have more than a passing interest in the American-born Pope Leo XIV’s request for “pardon” for the Holy See’s specific role in maintaining the the institution of slavery.
Justin Mclellan/National Catholic Reporter
“Highlighting the “new forms of slavery” propagated by technological developments — including people condemned to data labeling, model training and content moderation, as well as those who labor to extract rare minerals for tech devices — Leo addressed the church’s own history of complicity with the slave trade. He stated that Catholics cannot “deny or diminish the delay with which both society and the Church came to denounce the scourge of slavery.”
“There is a subtle but important movement in the language that the document uses” on slavery, Anna Rowlands, a professor of Catholic social thought at England’s Durham University who participated in the encyclical’s presentation, told reporters after the document’s release. “This text, I think, is Pope Leo trying to say this is a church question; this is a question for the whole church, not just individual Christians.” […]
Several papal bulls issued amid waves of colonization in the 15th-century explicitly authorized the enslavement of non-Christians by Portuguese rulers. It was not until 1839 that Pope Gregory XVI called that slave trade “inhuman” and “unworthy of the Christian name.” The pope’s namesake, Pope Leo XIII, later issued an encyclical on the abolition of slavery in 1888.
Leo XIV, who counts both enslaved people and slaveowners among his ancestors, said that the church’s delayed moral development on the issue of slavery constitutes “a wound in Christian memory, one from which we cannot consider ourselves detached.”
“For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon,” he wrote.”
I’ve been following University of Pennsylvania Professor of Religion Anthea Butler’s reaction to the papal encyclical on Bluesky:
I was already planning a Black Kos post on the interaction between Black Americans and AI technologies so, like Professor Butler, I will have more to say on the subject in a couple of weeks (I’ve already started the research).
For now, I will say that Pope Leo’s request for pardon for the Holy See’s role in perpetuating the institution of African-descended slavery is a welcome beginning and I look forward to reading and utilizing his entire encyclical for suggestions in preventing additional abuses of underclasses of people in the 21st century (and remember that some of those abuses include slavery).
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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After Callais, the old civil rights politics is moot. And more recent strategies have limited reach. Here’s how we can build something more transformative. The New Republic: The Voting Rights Act Is Dead. Here’s a New Model for Black Politics.
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The fallout from Louisiana v. Callais has been nothing short of tragic, with terrible echoes of the past. As Reconstruction ended in 1877, states in the South either killed, expelled, or used other means to force out Black legislators. Over the last two weeks, freed from abiding by Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Southern states have rushed to redraw their district lines to ensure that members of Congress elected by Black voters can’t win reelection.
We are in a new era of American democracy, particularly for Black Americans. The Republican Party now views Democratic Party electoral wins and policy success as an existential crisis that it must prevent by any means necessary. Crushing Black political power is therefore essential to the GOP, since African Americans overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party. And the current Supreme Court, more than any in decades, has not only removed virtually all constraints on policies that might negatively affect African Americans but actively looks to outlaw any public policy that might benefit Blacks.
This era demands a new framework for Black politics—fresh strategies, tactics, leaders, and goals. We need a “Double Front” approach. And we should be clear-eyed: Even before Callais, the existing models of Black politics were growing stale.
It’s worth explaining when and how Black politics lost its effectiveness. There has never been a singular Black political movement or African American ideology. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois famously quarreled. Du Bois’s own views shifted over the course of his life. The reality of the civil rights activism of the 1950s and ’60s was more complicated and messy than beautiful Martin Luther King speeches and smartly organized boycotts.
But after the civil rights victories of the 1960s, a clear Black politics emerged and predominated for five decades. Aspiring Black leaders, who had earlier led from the pulpit or protests, sought and won political office, most commonly becoming either mayor or member of Congress in heavily Black areas. A network of Black organizations, such as the National Urban League and the NAACP, focused less on the mass protests of the civil rights era and more on behind-the-scenes lobbying and collaborating with those Black officials in office.
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The historic apology acknowledges how the Catholic Church’s highest authority helped give European powers religious cover to subjugate and enslave non-Christians. The Grio: Pope Leo XIV apologizes for Catholic Church’s role in legitimizing slavery
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Pope Leo XIV is making history with an apology that goes further than past papal statements on slavery.
The pope apologized Monday for the Vatican’s role in legitimizing slavery and for the Catholic Church’s failure to condemn it for centuries. Leo called that record a “wound in Christian memory,” ABC News reported.
The apology appeared in Leo’s first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” or “Magnificent Humanity,” a broader document focused on protecting human dignity in an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence. But inside that warning about modern exploitation, Leo confronted one of the Catholic Church’s most painful historical chapters: the way past popes helped give European rulers religious authority to subjugate and enslave people described at the time as “infidels.”
“It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord,” Leo wrote. “For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon.”
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Black student organizations nationwide navigate shrinking institutional support amid the broader rollback of DEI programs on college campuses. The Grio: Alfred Street Baptist Church steps in after Mizzou cuts Black student government funding
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When the University of Missouri moved to cut designated funding for its historic Black student government, help did not come from campus leadership. It came from a Black church nearly 900 miles away.
Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, announced Sunday that it will fund the Legion of Black Collegians at Mizzou, according to Phil Lewis’ “What I’m Reading.” The decision comes after the university said it would end annual designated funding for the LBC and several other identity-based student organizations beginning in July, citing federal restrictions tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
“Although they’ve been defunded by the government, we have decided we are not going to let that student organization fail to have programming,” Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley, senior pastor of Alfred Street Baptist Church, said in a video shared online.
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We spoke to LeVar Thomas, a cannabis shop owner, about the greatest struggles and barriers for Black folks in the industry. The Root: Black Cannabis Shop Owner Explains Struggles Still Impacting Black Owners
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We spoke to LeVar Thomas, the co-founder of Silly Nice, a Black-owned cannabis brand in New York. In his role, Thomas has seen the industry blossom in the state, which expanded its decriminalization of marijuana in 2019, according to the New York Times. Still, he’s aware of the greater disparities and history of mass incarceration that still arise for Black people.
“The same plant that created generational harm in Black communities is now creating generational wealth for a very different group of people. That tension doesn’t go away just because the laws changed,” Thomas told us. “If anything, legalization makes it more visible.”
Black people are more than three times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people, despite both groups using the drug at comparable rates, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. These disparities only further fuel the mass incarceration system, which Black people make up 40 percent but only 13 percent of the nation’s greater population.
Knowing this, Thomas said Silly Nice is on a mission to change the narrative for Black cannabis users. “Building Silly Nice isn’t separate from that history. It’s a direct response to it,” he explained. “It’s about participating in an industry that once excluded people like us, while being intentional about how we move inside of it.”
The path hasn’t been easy, however. According to the Silly Nice website, the company began its journey in 2001, years before cannabis was partially embraced by American consumerism, let alone the federal government. As a Black business owner, Thomas explained that a lack of access has built high barriers for him and other Black folks in the industry.
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Bonolo Selelo and Tsholofelo Kumile are going to court for right to wed but face fierce opposition from church groups. The Guardian: ‘She does not back down’: the couple seeking to legalise same-sex marriage in Botswana
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Bonolo Selelo was at Botswana’s national museum for a Gaborone Pride event when she spotted Tsholofelo Kumile and was struck by her good looks. The two initiated a conversation and when Kumile expressed anxiety about what a tarot reading at the event might hold, Selelo thought nothing of offering her a hug. The reading turned out positive but Kumile claimed her hug anyway and they talked for hours.
That was 1 October 2023. Two months later, they moved in together. Then, on a hike during the Easter holidays in 2024, Selelo proposed to Kumile. A year later, they visited a local government office to register their intent to marry and were told it wasn’t legal.
“It was kind of expected. But I don’t think they expected the response,” Kumile said. She looked affectionately at Selelo. “She does not back down.”
The couple launched a court case, claiming the right to marry. Hearings are scheduled for 14 and 15 July. If they succeed, Botswana would become the second African country to legalise same-sex marriage, after South Africa in 2006. However, the case is facing fierce opposition from the government and traditional and church groups.
“We did have a frank discussion about it,” said Selelo, sitting next to her fiancee in the office of her law firm, which Kumile also works for. “I said … I want us to get married, because I love you, but there’s also the practical part.”
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The fight for voting rights continues CNBC: Judges block Alabama districts that would dilute Black vote in 2026 congressional elections
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A panel of federal judges on Monday blocked Alabama from using congressional district maps that would dilute the votes of Black people in the 2026 midterm elections.
The ruling in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Ala., which found that the maps “intentionally discriminated based on race,” sets the stage for the Supreme Court to determine whether the maps, which were first proposed in 2023, can be used by Alabama this year.
The decision is a victory — albeit possibly a temporary one — for Democrats as they try to win a majority in the House of Representatives in November’s elections.
Republicans last year began a series of congressional map redrawings in an effort to retain their ultra-thin majority in the House.
The three-judge panel issued its ruling in response to the Supreme Court telling it to revisit the question of whether the maps could be used in light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in a case known as Louisiana v. Callais, which found that Louisiana’s drawing of its own congressional map was a racial gerrymander.
Two judges on the panel were appointed by President Donald Trump: Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer. The third judge, Stanley Marcus, was first nominated to a federal district court by President Ronald Reagan, and then was nominated to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, where he currently sits, by President Bill Clinton.
The panel noted that it previously had ruled that Alabama’s map of districts violated the “Voting Rights Act of 1965 and intentionally discriminated against Black voters based on race in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
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