Sorry for Slavery. Checks for Criminals.

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Sorry for Slavery. Checks for Criminals.

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While criminals get rich, a holy man said sorry. - The pope apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in slavery. Five hundred and seventy-four years after popes authorized the enslavement of Africans, the Vatican finally admits its complicity.So I’m asking. What does an apology mean when violent offenders and felons get reparations? I’m thinking this might be the first receipt in a long-overdue accounting.Today, Pope Leo XIV used his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas — “Magnificent Humanity” — to apologize for the Catholic Church’s role in legitimizing slavery.I don’t know if y’all understand how big of a deal that is.According to the Associated Press, this is the first time a pope has publicly acknowledged and apologized for the role that past popes themselves played in giving European sovereigns authority to subjugate and enslave non-Christians.That is huge.But at the same time?It is still just words.So today, I’m going to give you a little history — and some math.In every book I write that involves the Caribbean, one of the most disconcerting things I find is that the Catholic Church was complicit in the moral sin of enslavement.I am a woman of faith (or, as Ellen, my daughter, says, Non-denominational with Baptist leanings).My faith grounds me. It’s my identity. It has sustained me in some of my darkest hours.But when I do research and see enslaved people working in horrible conditions for priests, ministers, missionaries, and all the Catholic orders, I have to sit with that contradiction.Can you imagine spreading the good news of a Savior while returning to camp to beat and punish someone because the law said you were allowed to own them? Can you imagine preaching salvation while denying someone else’s humanity?Today I ask: what matters more — the apology, or the 574-year delay?In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued Dum Diversas, authorizing the Portuguese crown to conquer, subjugate, and enslave non-Christians in Africa. The AP reports that this gave permission to “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”That was 574 years ago.Five hundred and seventy-four years is a long time to wait for someone to say, “We were wrong.” So yes, give some credit to Pope Leo.He’s American. He is from Chicago. His family tree includes both enslaved people and enslavers. Maybe all of that matters. Maybe that’s why he could step up and say wrong is wrong, even if his own hands were never on the master’s whip.That means something.But it does not mean everything.Because apologies without repair are just public relations.So let’s talk numbers.In 1838, the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus — the Jesuits — sold 272 enslaved people to two Louisiana planters for $115,000.That gives us a benchmark:$115,000 divided by 272 people equals $422.79 per enslaved person in 1838 dollars.Historian Andrew Dial estimates that they held more than 20,000 people in bondage by the mid-eighteenth century.So let’s calculate from there.If 20,000 enslaved people were valued at the Georgetown benchmark:20,000 × $422.79 = $8.46 million in 1838 dollars. $296–338 millionBut Jesuits are just one order of the Catholic Church, if you add the Franciscans, Dominicans, Capuchins, missions, universities, and the plantation systems throughout Brazil, Haiti, Cuba, Louisiana, and the French Caribbean, you can increase that number to 100,000 - 400,000 enslaved people.The value rises from $296 Million to as high as $5 billion in today’s dollars.That is the math.Now let’s widen the lens.The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database estimates about 12.5 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic slave trade.Using the same Georgetown benchmark:12.5 million × $422.79 = $5.285 billion in 1838 dollars.In today’s dollars, that is roughly: $185 billion to $211 billion.And that is still only the body-price.· Not labor.· Not land.· Not sugar.· Not cotton.· Not tobacco.· Not banks.· Not insurance.· Not universities.· Not inherited wealth.· Not compound interest.· Just the sale value of humans.Well, Vanessa, I’m not Catholic. I figured you’d remember that. Let’s bring this home to the United States.Historians generally estimate that about 388,000 Africans were directly imported into what became the United States. By 1860, the enslaved population had grown to nearly 4 million people through forced reproduction and hereditary slavery.Using the Georgetown benchmark:4,000,000 × $422.79 = $1.691 billion in 1838 dollars.Converted today: $59 billion to $68 billion.Now, if you divided that across roughly 49 million Black Americans today, that would be about: $1,200 to $1,388 per person.And somebody will say, “See, that’s not that much. Get over it.”They would be right about the number, because it is too small. It only values enslaved people as property. It does not include what was stolen from them and their descendants.It does not include:* 250 years of unpaid labor,* lost wages,*...

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