This week in Christian history: Billy Graham preaches to 3,000 in Chicago, Billy Bray dies

Pope issues decree opposing enslavement of Indians – May 29, 1537

This week marks the anniversary of Pope Paul III issued an encyclical denouncing the enslavement of Native Americans by Catholic countries conquering the Americas.

At the time, Spanish forces had begun annexing large swathes of territory in the Americas, and had already conquered the Aztec Empire in Central America.

Titled “Sublimus Deus” or “The Sublime God,” the edict declared that “Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ.”

“The sublime God so loved the human race that He created man in such wise that he might participate, not only in the good that other creatures enjoy, but endowed him with capacity to attain to the inaccessible and invisible Supreme Good and behold it face to face,” stated the edict.

“We, who, though unworthy, exercise on earth the power of our Lord and seek with all our might to bring those sheep of His flock who are outside into the fold committed to our charge, consider, however, that the Indians are truly men and that they are not only capable of understanding the Catholic Faith but, according to our information, they desire exceedingly to receive it.”