Pope Leo XIV issued the first explicit papal apology for the Vatican’s role in legitimizing slavery through the rulings of past pontiffs, calling the delay in acknowledging the Holy See’s role “a wound in Christian memory.”

The historic admission came in the first encyclical of the U.S.-born pontiff, Magnifica Humanitas, a sweeping document published Monday focused largely on artificial intelligence and modern forms of exploitation. But the text also directly addressed centuries of criticism over the Catholic Church’s involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

“It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord,” Leo wrote.

“For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon,” he added.

While previous popes of recent decades have condemned slavery or expressed regret for Christians’ participation in it, Leo is the first to publicly acknowledge the Holy See’s institutional role in authorizing it and setting a precedent which began in a series of 15th-century papal decrees.

Among them was the 1452 bull Dum Diversas, issued by Pope Nicholas V, which granted Portugal’s rulers authority “to invade, conquer, fight and subjugate” non-Christians and “to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.” The decree and others like it later underpinned the so-called Doctrine of Discovery, used by European powers to justify colonial expansion across Africa and the Americas.

Leo wrote that the Church had taken too long to fully recognize slavery’s incompatibility with Christian teaching, calling that delay “a wound in Christian memory.”

The pope, whose own ancestry reportedly includes both enslaved people and slaveholders, linked the Church’s historical failures to what he described as emerging “forms of slavery” tied to the AI era, including exploitative labor used in the extraction of minerals for technology production.

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