Slavery and the Catholic Church in the United States

The intertwining of U.S. Catholicism and race-based slavery is a painful aspect of the Church’s history. Many scholars have shied away from this uncomfortable topic, but in recent years a cadre of historians have studied Catholics’ varied roles: as enslaved persons, slaveholders, defenders of slavery, and, in a few cases, advocates of abolition and emancipation.

This collection of nine essays is divided into three sections: enslaved persons and slaveholders, debating abolition and ema…