The Jesuits
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Catholic Order Pledges $100 Million to Atone for Slave Labor
There is movement taking place by Jesuit priests ! It is the largest such effort by the Roman Catholic Church and comes amid growing calls for reparations across the United States, according to Rachel L Swarnv
“This is an opportunity for Jesuits to begin a very serious process of truth and reconciliation,” said the Rev. Timothy P. Kesicki, president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. “Our shameful history of Jesuit slaveholding in the United States has been taken off the dusty shelf, and it can never be put back.”
The money raised by the Jesuits will flow into a new foundation established in partnership with a group of descendants, who pressed for negotiations with the Jesuit. The order relied on slave labor and slave sales for more than a century to sustain the clergy and to help finance the construction and the day-to-day operations of churches and schools, including the nation’s first Catholic institution of higher education in the college now know as Georgetown University.
“This is an opportunity for Jesuits to begin a very serious process of truth and reconciliation,” said the Rev. Timothy P. Kesicki, president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. “Our shameful history of Jesuit slaveholding in the United States has been taken off the dusty shelf, and it can never be put back.”
According to Father Kesicki his order had already deposited $15 million into a trust established to support the foundation, whose governing board will include representatives from other institutions with roots in slavery. The Jesuits have also hired a national fund-raising firm with a goal of raising the rest within the next three to five years, he said.
The pledge falls short of the $1 billion that descendant leaders had called on the Jesuits to raise. On going fundraising continues through the Catholic Church and other private and public sectors.
Father Kesicki and Joseph M. Stewart, the acting president of the newly created foundation, the Descendants Truth and Reconcilation Foundation, said that remained a long-term goal as the organization moves to support institutions and initiatives focused on racial healing.
Illimunare Poker is proud to support the Jesuits in their effort to continue the fundraising through our charity donations in their Reparations program.
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