Pope Leo XIV has issued a landmark apology for the Holy See's direct involvement in legitimising slavery and its centuries-long failure to condemn the practice. He described the Vatican’s historical record as a "wound in Christian memory."
While previous pontiffs have expressed regret for Christian participation in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, this marks the first time a Pope has publicly acknowledged, and apologised for, the explicit authority granted by past popes to European sovereigns to subjugate and enslave "infidels."
