Bending the Arc

On Monday, November 9, 2026, Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life is offering an in-person and livestreamed dialogue called, Repentance, Repair, and Prevention: Slavery and Human Dignity in Magnifica Humanitas.

Pope Leo, an American-born pope descended from both enslavers and enslaved people, surprised many when, in his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, he apologized for the Catholic Church’s historic complicity in slavery. He made clear that this apology was only the beginning; “what we have learned,” he wrote, “must be translated into discernment and responsibility in the present.”
This dialogue between Catholic leaders and scholars of the history of slavery will explore how the Church can respond with “discernment and responsibility” to its role in past injustice. At Georgetown University, this discussion is particularly important given our ongoing commitments to respond, to reflect on, engage with, and learn from its historical ties to slavery. The participants will explore how the Church, as well as Catholic institutions and individuals, can safeguard the truth about human dignity while acknowledging past failures, and how this history can inform Catholics’ response to new forms of exploitation in the digital age.

Register Here and/or tune in to the livestream and recording on the Georgetown YouTube channel for this and hundreds of other meaningful recordings.

For additional education on a Catholic response (Jesuits) to acknowledging the past and understanding what true reconciliation requires, learn about the “What We Inherit: Truth, Repair, and a Promise to the Future” exhibit at the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN) in this NRC article. The self-guided traveling display runs October 5-November 7.