A Call for Contrition

A call for Contrition of the Papacy

His holiness, Pope John Paul VI
Vatican City, Rome
March 1, 1994

Your Holiness, The Pope:

A call for Contrition of the Papacy

The history of the slave trade which began the hunt by Europeans for slaves in Africa during which millions upon millions of our people died in the middle passage, and millions of others who survived the tortures of the middle passage were uprooted from their homes and planted in America, is that it was the Papacy that blessed and encouraged Europeans from 1441 to raid and capture, transport and enslave our people in America.

In 1441, history writes: Anton Goncalvas and his friend, Nuna Tristao, captured first 12 Africans from Senegal, took them home to Portugal, and handed them over to their Prince of Portugal, Prince Henry the navigator, as their gift to him. At once Prince Henry sent his special ambassador to Rome to explain to the Pope, Pope Eugene IV, his plans to start manhunt for slaves in Africa.

Pope Eugene IV, welcomed the crusade proposed by Prince Henry of Portugal and sent a message back to Prince Henry, granting to all of those who shall be engaged in the said war complete forgiveness for all their sins. Again in 1501, Queen Isabella of Spain issued the initial proclamation of the Spanish throne, on laws for the exploit of African slaves to America.

In reaction, Bishop Bartholomew De La Casas, following the holocaust in which 12 million native American Indians were wiped off by invading Europeans, recommended to Pope Paul III, who agreed and gave the scheme his Papal authority and moral support of the church—that Africans be hunted for and caught and transported to America as slaves to work for Europeans there, in place of the native Americans, who at the time had come to be regarded as an endangered human species.

To Further harden the hearts of Europeans in the manhunt for slaves in Africa, the church trumped up and wrote the teaching into their Bible that black men were descendants of Canaan, first son of Ham who was cursed by Noah that the children of Canaan, his first son, shall be black, and shall forever remain slaves to white men, descendants of Shem, the other brother of Ham. The charge by Noah against Ham was that when he, Noah was drunk and asleep, Ham had unmanned him and saw him naked.

DECLARE PAPAL CONTRITION AND JOIN REPARATION CAMPAIGN

Given the above facts of history, I write in my capacity as the Supreme Head of Chiism (Chiism), and chairman of the Organization of the Traditional Religions of Africa, to ask you as the present Pope to issue an encyclical around the church all over the world declaring the contrition of the Papacy over it’s role in the slave trade and slavery that dehumanized the black race as in the above historical account and to join the ongoing campaign by African Americans, and all the black world calling for reparation, in other to restore the dignity of the black race, whom your white European race had dehumanized on the Papal authority of the Vatican.

I further call on you to use your Papal authority to get the church to expunge from the Bible anywhere it is written that the blacks of the world are cursed children of Ham—cursed to remain forever, hewers of wood and drawers of water in perpetual servitude to the white race. The Bible, written by men, had undergone several revisions—an historical fact in which you will not find it heretic to accommodate this demand.Otherwise, we will mount a worldwide campaign calling on all the children of Africa to register their protest by walking en mass out of Christianity. They cannot continue to be in a religion that teaches that their race is a cursed race.

If your Holiness remembers that while one can fool some people for some time, one cannot fool all the people all the time, you will see reason not to treat this protest letter with levity.

The campaign for all black people to walk in protest out of Christianity may take time to bear fruit, but it will one day come to be.

Yours for Universal unity of humanity, under the Parenthood of one Chineke (God).

His Holiness, Ogbaja, Ahanyi, Kama Onu Kama Onyioha
Supreme Head of Chiism and Chairman, Organization of the Traditional Religions of Africa.

cc: The president, Vatican Secretariat for non-Christians Vatican City, Rome.

His Grace, The Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Lambeth Palace, London.

The Secretary--General, World Council of religion and Peace United Nations Church Center, 777 U.N. Plaza New York, New York, 10017 U.S.A.

Secretary—General, United Nations Headquarters New York, New York 10017.

REPARATION MOVEMENT Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A.