Catholic institutions also served slaveholding and colonial white supremacy in America

Evidence

The history of white supremacy among white Catholics is more complex. With its roots in Western Europe, Roman Catholicism has a long history of colonialism, particularly in Africa and the global South, where centuries of atrocities against and oppression of black and brown peoples were justified by convictions that white Christians were God’s chosen means of “civilizing” the world. One of the first black men to set foot on North American soil, for example, was a slave, one of four Catholic Spaniards who survived a harrowing trek across what is now Florida, Arkansas, and Texas in 1536. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 34

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The US Catholic Church practiced racial segregation exceeding all other denominations — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 194; Catholic clergy organized white resistance to integrated housing in Detroit — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 196; Catholic clergy publicly identified their own Church as a white racist institution in 1968 — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 199 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Racist theological ideas sanctioned and made American slavery acceptable to Christian churches #expands (0.85) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 20
• White churches historically functioned as agents upholding racist social structures #corroborates (0.85) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1055
• White Christianity has been the primary institution legitimizing white power #corroborates (0.80) — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 210
• White churches morally legitimized and protected white supremacy through state power #corroborates (0.80) — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 125