Pope Leo XIV sincerely asks for forgiveness for the Church's long failure to condemn slavery

Vatican City, May 25 (CNA) - Pope Leo XIV apologized today for the Catholic Church's centuries-long failure to condemn slavery, sincerely asking for forgiveness and calling it a 'wound in the memory of Christians.' According to AFP, in his first encyclical released today, 'Magnifica humanitas,' the Pope stated, 'For this, I sincerely ask for forgiveness in the name of the Church,' while warning that 'new forms of slavery are emerging behind the digital economy.' Previous popes have apologized for Christian involvement in the slave trade. The late Pope John Paul II publicly condemned slavery in 1992 and asked for forgiveness for various historical injustices in 2000; the late Pope Francis also repeatedly criticized various forms of modern slavery during his lifetime. However, Leo XIV went further, pointing out that the Catholic Church still held slaves until the Middle Ages and even advised European monarchs on how to justify the enslavement of 'infidels.' The encyclical, which focuses on the rise of artificial intelligence, notes that the Church did not 'make a clear, firm, and universal condemnation of slavery' until the 19th century. 'It is not appropriate to judge past events with the eyes of modern people, as if the moral standards that matured over time had always existed. But we cannot deny or diminish the fact that both the public and the Church were late in condemning the scourge of slavery,' the Pope emphasized. 'This is a wound in the memory of Christians, and we cannot consider it irrelevant to ourselves.'