BY JASON CROSS – JAMAICA OBSERVER
A riveting apology for the Church of England’s participation in slavery came on Sunday from the Right Honourable Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury who was guest preacher at the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Anglican Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
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The celebratory church service was held at the National Arena in St Andrew and was attended by hundreds of people, including dignitaries and high-ranking members of the church.
It was Welby’s opinion, that “the church sinned and consumed the sheep”.
“I cannot speak for the Government of the United Kingdom but I can speak from my own heart and represent what we say now in England. We are deeply, deeply, deeply sorry.
“We sinned against your ancestors. I would give anything that that can be reversed, but it cannot,” Welby said, pointing out that the church began its transformation from loving power to begin loving people, in the 19th century.
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“The good shepherd of Psalm 23 is at work among us. Conversion changes the whole sense of who we are. It gives us a new identity. So, what makes for a better future?
“The knowledge of when our predecessors terribly failed cannot be ignored. We are all forgiven by God for the things we confess because Jesus bore the sins on himself, being God Himself. We are now responsible to God to do right, and to repent and say sorry. That must involve reversing direction and going in a different way. Our Saviour and His ever-present love led the church into seeking to do right. Too late, but better late than never.”
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Welby told the congregants that it was his privilege to be invited to address them, and explained that he saw the invitation as an act of grace and forgiveness on their part.
He said he knows that parts of the Church of England, and even one of the archbishops in the 18th century, owned slaves.
“The shepherd, as Ezekiel said, consumed the flock. It is no wonder the Church of England has suffered judgement, for what worse thing could be done? Even for those in the church who did not actively participate in chattel enslavement, the silence of the church was collusion, an agreement with slavery,” he said, adding that there were bishops who truly profited from slavery.
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“Today we know that we were wrong. It was a vile and disgusting sin. There remains in many hearts resistance to the concept of enslavement as being our sin and the celebration of ending the idea that a human being can ever be a possession. Yesterday the diocese was savaged by its shepherds.
“Today it is a diocese that suffers the consequence of its past when it was the church of slave owners,” Welby said to an attentive congregation, in hoping his apology would be accepted.
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The combined Anglican church choir in action at the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Anglican Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands at the National Arena in St Andrew on Sunday. (Photo: Joseph Wellington)
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Action is what needed now not just words, God is not human he knows everything and See’s everything Conscience is an open wound only the truth can heal it.💯✍️🌿✅👉🙏🙏
Next in line to apologise: the Roman Catholic Church, the ARCHITECTS of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, by Papal Bull.
Pope Nicholas V, in 1455, issued “Bulls of Discovery” authorizing King Alphonso of Portugal to conquer Africa and beyond, and to engage in the slave trade. He was to “invade, search out, capture, vanquish and subdue all saracens (Muslims) and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce them to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his sucessors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit.” This gave birth to the doctrine of “Terra Nullius” or “Nobody’s Land”.
The underlying principle of “Terra Nullius” was that all lands not in the possession of Christians, were there for the taking.
It mattered not that a fifth of the global population already inhabited the “discovered” lands from time immemorial. They were dispossessed of there lands and their human rights; they were subjugated and exploited to the highest degree and, worst of all, they were deemed to be sub-human, inferior creatures, fit only to be sold as slaves in foreign lands.
This declaration by the Roman Catholic Church set the stage for the atrocities associated with the Atlantic Slave Trade and the inequalities being experienced today by most indigenous peoples, but especially people of colour everywhere on Earth.
It is time for the Catholic Church to accept her historic role in the Atlantic Slave Trade and to repent and make restitution for her considerable crimes against humanity.
An apology as spoken from a satan worshipper who leads his flock into the abomination called homosodomy, who actively promotes abortion, who celebrates mutilating sex change surgeries that he calls “gender affirming””care” to mention a few.
Justin Welby is a direct descendent of Satan himself much as Welby’s brethren, Caine and Judas.
Keep your sorry and pay back my ancestors and current Afro Caribbean people. I always ask why doesn’t the reparations committee hold the Church organizations accountable for their primary role in slavery. Those devil worshippers in the reparations committee do not have black people best interest at heart. Real freedom fighters call out everyone who are responsible for slavery. The Church has made billions from slavery and and still they only want to say sorry. Dutty devils.
It appears to be a very sincere apology from the Arch Bishop. He spoke from his heart and we cannot hold him responsible for the actions of others.
I greatly appreciated his brave stance and he that there would be an opportunity for him to work along with the government’s of the region on the international stage to seek repatriation from countries involved.
The whole of Buckingham palace should be arrested for this
The whole of Buckingham palace should be arrested for slavery
Personally I think it’s best if everyone looks more to the future than the past. Note the past so it never happens again, but being consumed in anger about the past is an enemy of progress. You can waste a lot of time and energy fighting people who are not currently trying to fight with you. When your mind is consumed by the past there is not much room to plan and prepare for the future. It’s time for everyone to focus on working together to create good societies and communities for all of us to live in and raise the next generation as well. If reparations for the past are given great. But even if not, we are more than capable of building a good society from the ground up making use of the natural God-given resources around us.
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