Nat Hentoff Quotes
I like [John Cardinal O'Connor] a lot. He - I started a - to know him - when I asked William Shawn at The New Yorker, 'Sh - can I do a profile of Cardinal O'Connor?' He said, 'All right. Find out what he's like.' So I went to his office, and I heard somebody - and it turned out to be O'Connor - yelling outside, and I've never heard him since raise his voice.
Hentoff, Nat. Interview by Brian Lamb. Booknotes, C-SPAN, 2 Nov. 1997.
This decree is an example of the Catholic Church’s official response to the advent of slavery in the New World. Slavery here should be distinguished from what the Catholic Church called “just title” slavery, which approved of the practice in circumstances in which the person was deprived of their liberty justly. Specific examples have included slaves captured in war, persons condemned to slavery for a crime, and those who sold themselves into slavery. For an example of a type of “just title” slavery being legitimatized, see Nicholas V {612174}. The practice of enslaving entire ethnic groups like South American natives was, however, “never before heard of” and was immediately condemned. In many cases the line between slavery for no morally justifiable reason, i.e. racial slavery, and “just title” slavery remained unclear to Catholic laity and clergy alike.
The defense of slavery in this Instruction is not a defense of the racial slavery that was prevalent in the South prior to the Civil War, but rather a philosophical defense of a just conception of slavery. Even so the Pope’s justification of the buying and selling of slaves flew in the face of a papal document issued by Gregory XVI twenty-seven years earlier {611428}. “Just titles” of slavery were approved by the Catholic Church in circumstances in which the person was deprived of their liberty justly. Specific examples in the past included slaves captured in war, persons condemned to slavery for a crime, and those who sold themselves into slavery. Even though the Vatican was defending “just titles” of slavery, this teaching has been seen as regressive and highly contradictory to true Catholicism. After this Instruction the distinction between just and unjust slavery in Catholic teaching would erode and twenty-one years later Pope Leo XIII {611844} would condemn slavery and openly support abolition throughout the world.
Nathan Irving Hentoff was an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media. Hentoff was a columnist for The Village Voice from 1958 to 2009. Following his departure from The Village Voice, Hentoff became a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and continued writing his music column for The Wall Street Journal, which published his works until his death. He often wrote on First Amendment issues, vigorously defending the freedom of the press.
