2026-06-10

The Usurper’s Empty Gesture: Exposing the Modernist Apology for Slavery as Historical Revisionism and Doctrinal Subversion

EWTN News reports that the usurper Robert Prevost, styling himself “Pope Leo XIV,” issued an encyclical titled *Magnifica Humanitas* in which he apologized for the Catholic Church’s historical role in slavery, specifically critiquing papal bulls from the 15th century issued by Popes Eugenius IV and Nicholas V. The article explains that while the Church never doctrinally taught slavery was morally good, certain popes “intervened several times in order to regulate and legitimize forms of subjugation” at the request of political leaders. The usurper wrote: “Political and, at times, even economic needs overcame the demands of the Gospel.” The article further notes that a “formal, absolute, and universal condemnation of slavery” was not issued until Pope Leo XIII’s 1888 encyclical, and that Leo XIV added that “we [cannot] deny or diminish” the Church’s delay in its denouncement. Catholic Answers apologist Tom Nash defended the Church by arguing that the bulls in question were not infallible doctrinal pronouncements but rather “prudential judgments” applicable only to specific historical circumstances, and that the Church has never definitively taught that chattel slavery was morally just. The article also references earlier papal condemnations of slavery, including Pope Paul III’s 1537 bull *Sublimis Deus*, Pope Gregory XVI’s 1839 brief *In Supremo Apostolatus*, and St. John Paul II’s apologies for Christian participation in slavery. The article concludes by noting that Christian opposition to slavery is rooted in the teachings of Jesus Christ and the inherent dignity of every human person. This article, far from being a simple historical reflection, is a masterclass in modernist revisionism, historical manipulation, and the systematic undermining of the Church’s doctrinal authority—all hallmarks of the conciliar sect’s ongoing apostasy.