American Jesuits pledge $100 million for descendants of slaves they owned, sold

The Jesuits, a Catholic order of priests that counts Pope Francis among its members, have pledged to raise at least $100 million to atone for the order's ownership and sale of enslaved Black people in the early days of the American republic, The New York Times reported Monday. Historians and Catholic officials said it is one of the largest efforts by an institution to atone for participating in slavery.
The money will be paid out through a new foundation, the Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Foundation, created through three years of discussions between Jesuit leaders and a group representing the descendants of 272 slaves the order sold to a Louisiana plantation in 1838 to save Georgetown College, now Georgetown University, the first Catholic institution of higher learning in the U.S. The sale raised $115,000, or about $3.3 million in today's dollars. Genealogists at the Georgetown Memory Project have identified about 5,000 living descendants of people enslaved by the Jesuits.
The new foundation is headed by one of the descendants, Joseph Stewart, and its governing board includes representatives from Georgetown and other institutions with roots in slavery. The Jesuits have already contributed $15 million and plan to raise the other $85 million over the next five years. About half the annual budget will go toward grants for organizations engaging in racial reconciliation, a quarter will fund educational grants and scholarships for descendants, and some of the money will go directly toward supporting the needs of old and infirm descendants, the Times reports.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Stewart wrote the Jesuit leadership in Rome in May 2017, calling for negotiations over the newly resurfaced Georgetown slave sale. The Jesuit superior general, Rev. Arturo Sosa, wrote back a month later, urging Stewart's group and American Jesuits to talk and describing the order's slaveholding past as "a sin against God and a betrayal of the human dignity of your ancestors." In August 2017, Rev. Timothy Kesicki, president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, flew to Michigan to meet with the Stewarts and lay the groundwork for the new foundation.
"This is an opportunity for Jesuits to begin a very serious process of truth and reconciliation," Fr. Kesicki said in a statement. "Our shameful history of Jesuit slaveholding in the United States has been taken off the dusty shelf, and it can never be put back."
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
'Singling out crypto for special scrutiny would be misguided'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Nigeria's 'baby factories': a hidden crisis
A secretive network sees women lured, locked upa nd forced to give birth for profit
-
Trump trashes supporters over Epstein files
speed read The president lashed out on social media following criticism of his administration's Jeffrey Epstein investigation
-
Trump trashes supporters over Epstein files
speed read The president lashed out on social media following criticism of his administration's Jeffrey Epstein investigation
-
Judge nixes wiping medical debt from credit checks
Speed Read Medical debt can now be included in credit reports
-
Grijalva wins Democratic special primary for Arizona
Speed Read She will go up against Republican nominee Daniel Butierez to fill the US House seat her father held until his death earlier this year
-
US inflation jumps as Trump tariffs 'bite'
Speed Read Consumer prices are climbing and the inflation rate rose to its highest level in four months
-
SCOTUS greenlights mass DOE firings
Speed Read The Supreme Court will allow the Trump administration to further shrink the Education Department
-
Cuomo announces third-party run for NYC mayor
Speed Read He will go up against progressive Democratic powerhouse Zohran Mamdani and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams
-
Secret Service 'failures' on Trump shooting
Speed Read Two new reports detail security breakdowns that led to attempts on the president's life
-
Trump set to hit Canada with 35% tariffs
Speed Read The president accused Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney of failing to stop the cross-border flow of fentanyl