About This Issue

In recent years, Catholic dioceses, religious orders, and schools have grappled with the moral and religious implications of their relationship to slavery. Working groups have been formed at various institutions to study the history of their ties to slavery and suggest possible responses. In 2017, at Georgetown University, for instance, a liturgy of remembrance, contrition and hope was held with some of the descendants of 272 enslaved persons sold by the Maryland Jesuit community in 1838, and two campus buildings—whose namesake had ties to slavery—were renamed to acknowledge the contributions of African Americans. I am grateful to Tricia Pyne, archivist of the Associated Archives at St. Mary's Seminary & University, Baltimore, for suggesting the topic for this theme issue and helping to recruit submissions.

The following essays, some of which originated in Catholic institutions' self-examination of their relationship to slavery, continue this important and timely discussion. Thomas R. Ulshafer, P.S.S. is former provincial of the U.S. Province of the Society of the Priests of St. Sulpice. He served as professor of moral theology at St. Mary's Seminary & University, Baltimore. Susan Nalezyty is the school archivist and historian at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School and lectures on the history of art at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Kelly L. Schmidt is a doctoral candidate in United States history and public history at Loyola University Chicago. She is research coordinator of the "Slavery, History, Memory, and Reconciliation Project," an initiative of the Jesuit Conference of the United States in partnership with Saint Louis University. Maura Jane Farrelly is associate professor and chair of American Studies at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts. Robert Emmett Curran is professor emeritus of history at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Paul T. Murray is emeritus professor of sociology at Siena College, Loudonville, New York.