THE SLAVE OF THE SLAVES

Contrary to what some people might think, St Peter Claver was not an African. He was a Spanish Jesuit who dedicated his life to serving the kidnapped Africans who were sold into slavery and were in Cartagena (modern day Colombia), waiting to be re-sold to slaveholders.

Many Africans died en route during the crossing from Africa to the New World; one wonders whether or not those were the fortunate ones. But those who did survive found in Peter Claver a hand and a voice of kindness and active love. He could not end the slave trade—it was too profitable for the Spanish and Portuguese colonies—but he could try to show a drop of regard for their human dignity, a dignity utterly denied by their “masters.” As would be the case some hundreds of years later for Archbishop Oscar Romero, St Peter Claver strove to be a “voice for the voiceless.”

There are terrible ironies involved in the continued story of the emancipated enslaved people in our country. Some folks once thought that the “crime” of whistling at a female of a different race was deserving of being bludgeoned to death, even if the “criminal” was 14. Some people in Florida seem to think that slavery was a benefit since it taught enslaved people useable skills (?? tap dancing? playing the banjo?). Even the existence of Catholic organizations like the Knights of St Peter Claver were, in their origins, shameful—it was created because the Knights of Columbus were segregated.

There are some who think that “Critical Race Theory” is a form of propaganda that should be banned from schools. I will confess that I taught the equivalent for years in the 80s and 90s while I was at Montgomery Catholic HS. I did it using the video series Eyes on the Prize. I thought it especially important that kids in Montgomery would learn what had happened in decades past—“Bloody Sunday” in all its dimensions, the death of Viola Liuzzo, the killing of Medgar Evers, the beating of the Freedom Riders, the policies and practices of Bull Connor, and so on.

St Peter Claver was overwhelmed by the opposition he faced in trying to minister to the enslaved people as human beings. In the parable, he desperately tried to rescue the babies flowing down the river. It fell to others, later on, to ask the hard question: why are babies flowing down the river in the first place?

As I write this, it is the optional memorial (unsanctioned but permitted) of Mother Teresa. She was another who knew overwhelming odds of eliminating the circumstances that produced so much poverty and suffering. But she ministered to them with love, to the best of her ability, and her sisters joined her in this life of love. Where do we see the need for active love in our society? What can we do? Even if we cannot do everything, we can do something. And “something” just might turn out to be more than we thought. Ss Peter Claver and Teresa of Kolkata, pray for us. - Fr. David