The Gospel of Luke relates an incident where a tax collector encountered Jesus and vowed to “restore” up to fourfold and unjust “taxes” that he may have taken from anyone. That proposal would require (1) the offended person to confirm the “unjust tax,” and (2) that person being “restored” four times that amount.
In 1450, Pope Nicholas V issued an official papal degree authorizing Portugal to “invade, conquer and subjugate non-Christians” and to “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.” In 1455, that authorization was reinforced and made part of the legal and religious principles for the colonial slavery of Africa and the Americas.
These papal degrees sought to “religiously justify” the financial benefits of slavery as if approved by God. From those times, even to the present, the beliefs and concepts that the subjugation of non-white persons to the white Christian focused religious bodies and practices have been part of the foundation for racial decriminalization throughout this nation.
Between 1500 and 1870, some 12 to 15 million Africans were sold into slavery in North and South America and the Caribbean islands. For years those slaves who did convert to Christianity did so with a legally and religious understanding that slavery was one of God’s provisions for “saving” their souls and assuring their entry into Heaven.
All of this were actually Roman Catholic Church efforts to benefit the economics of white businesses and governments. And to this day, the concept that white Christians are to be religiously and personally benefited by as “slave-based” subjugation of those who are perceived to be “lesser” individuals than they. It was all for monetary gain.
This concept was also part of the concept developed in the United States under the banner of the so-called Manifest Destiny concept of the western expansion of the United States in the early 1800s. That concept was enhanced by a painting in 1872 by John Gast called the “Spirit of the Frontier,” which depicted various images of expansion and progression from the East to the West, under the guidance and protection of the Greek goddess Columbia, who became the national identity of America.
The church historian William Weeks cited three tenets of the Manifest Destiny concept:
1. The assumption of a special moral virtue of the United States.
2. The assertion of the United States “mission” to “redeem the world” by the spread of the republican government, and more specifically the “American way of life.”
3. The belief that this was the nation’s “divinely ordained destiny.”
Heaven only knows how many persons of African, Native American, Asian and hispanic ethnicities have been subjugated to and denigrated by these ungodly and non-biblically based practices.
On Monday, May 25, Pope Leo XIV, in his first encyclical, made a historical acknowledgment of the Catholic Church’s role in endorsing and promoting the systemic practice of slavery. That papal decree was affirmed primarily for economic purposes, under the guise of proposed “religious benefits” to the un-Christianized slaves. Pope Leo apologized for the Catholic Church having done so, and for also having failed to condemn that ungodly practice for these past centuries.
And now what? How are all of these hundreds of years of biblical, immoral, inhuman and spiritually deceiving practices to be recompensed? How, who, could possibly “recompence” this enormous debt? How can anyone accurately determine the “cost” factors of the impact of slavery on the millions of people who have been generationally victimized by this church-endorsed money-making system?
The Laws in Exodus 22 specified double restitution of items taken from another. In Luke 19:8, Zaccheaus – a noted tax collector in Jerusalem, after encountering Jesus for himself, and realizing the inequities of the Roman “taxation system” of which he was an official, denounced, not only that system, but also his participation in it. He then committed himself to “restore” four-fold to anyone whom he had defrauded. To some that commitment might be viewed as an act of “reparations.”
The idea of “reparations” has been proposed and even promoted by various groups. But how can one accurately determine and calculate the true emotional, economic, family and community-disruptive, cultural, even financial “costs,” that over five centuries of dehumanization have generated?
In reality, financial “reparations” would only be part of the solution. Until and unless the mindset and practice individually and governmentally have been restored, the principles and practices of “slavery,” in whatever form it manifests itself, will continue.
The divine principle of humanity must be restored. And that “restoration” must begin with a personal, group, governmental commitment to perceive, treat, and relate to every man, woman, boy, and girl as a personal extension of God. How you treat that creature made in the image and after the likeness of God directly reflects you perception of and relationship with God.
As long as your perception of each individual, yourself and your relationship with God is not in harmony with his creative purpose, then your spiritual sight and insight is out of order. You have a bad case of “I-sight!” Your “view” of life and your relationship to your fellow man is deficiently occluded.
True restoration requires us all to return to God’s intended purpose for mankind – individually, collectively, harmoniously, morally, socially, ethnically, economically, governmentally, nationally, internationally, spiritually and religiously.
Understand that Pope Leo XIV’s moral and historical encyclical is only as sufficient as the implementation of God’s intended purpose for mankind is fulfilled.
“Reparate” all you can, will and should, but true restoration requires every individual, political system and national government becoming harmoniously one under God’s spirit.
Pastor Samuel W. Hale, Jr. is the former pastor of Zion Missionary Baptist Church and president of J.L. Powell Mission Ministries.
This article appears in June 4-10, 2026.
