The report identifies 99 people “enslaved” by Catholic clergy in the archdiocese, including the archdiocese’s first three bishops, 11 diocesan priests and seven other clergymen who ministered there in the 19th century.
“The enslaved individuals identified in this report played a vital role in building the local Church from a small, frontier mission to a thriving archdiocese. Their efforts must be acknowledged, and their stories must be told,” the report states.
The report, titled “Slavery in the Historic Archdiocese of St. Louis”, notes that the numbers given are not definitive; there are at least 30 unidentified people who were used as slaves by diocesan bishops and clergy, it states.
“We present the findings within this report with penitent hearts, so that we may begin the work of healing and continue to work toward the eradication of the sin of racism,” Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski says in an introductory letter to the report.
The 95-page report includes the biography and background of each bishop and clergy, alongside their exposure to, involvement in and known views of slavery. The report also provides a biography of each individually named slave held by the bishops and clergy.
The three bishops involved were Bishop William Louis Valentine DuBourg, Bishop Joseph Rosati, and Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick, who enslaved 19 people, 23 people and 4 people, respectively.
DuBourg led what was then the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas from 1815 to 1826, at which time he returned to France to serve as a bishop until his death in 1833. Rosati took over for DuBourg in 1826, and then became the first bishop of the Diocese of St. Louis when the diocese split in two a year later. He remained in charge of the diocese until he died in 1943.
Kenrick took over after the death of Rosati, and in 1847 became the first archbishop of St. Louis when it became a metropolitan see. He was there until 1895, and died a year later.
Even before there was a bishop in St. Louis, slavery was still prevalent among Catholic clergy who missioned in the area. The report identifies mission priests Fathers Pierre Gibault and James Maxwell who used at least nine identified slaves before DuBourg became bishop. It also identifies five other mission priests who had as many as 31 slaves between them in the years before St. Louis was a diocese.
The report, published 22 June as part of annual events held in St. Louis to commemorate the countless lives lost during the Atlantic slave trade, is the latest part of the archdiocese’s “Forgive Us Our Trespasses” project that was launched in 2018 by then-Archbishop Robert Carlson to research the archdiocese’s historical role in slavery. In 2020, Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski expanded the project, and gave it the “Forgive Us Our Trespasses” moniker.
Carlson initiated the project so the archdiocese could better understand the use of slaves by the bishops and clergy of the archdiocese, in what Rozanski describes as an effort to “bring to light the contributions and untold stories of those who were enslaved by the local Church”.
When Rozanski took over in 2020, he named the project, and gave it two additional goals: to “promote open and honest access to the [archdiocese’s] historic record of enslavement”, and to “promote community engagement and encourage dialog”.
The report was compiled through thousands of documents from research institutions worldwide, and according to Rozanski, represents the entirety of that research and what is currently known regarding the enslavement of people by diocesan clergy and bishops within the historical boundaries of the archdiocese.
The research, it is noted, will continue. The report states that the archdiocese will continue to examine its own files and make periodic updates to the report as new findings are compiled. Research will also continue into primary sources at a variety of institutions, including academic, diocesan, religious orders, and civil archives.
“This work is not complete,” the report continues. “There are unidentified enslaved people within the report that the committee strives to identify, and there are enslaved people that research has yet to uncover. They will be added to the report as the research continues.”