Your Holiness, Eminences and Excellencies:
Pan-African Roots hopes this message finds you in the best of health and spirits. We received this linked article on 24 February 2023: Pope nationalizes Vatican assets, property in new reform. We thank the National Catholic Reporter for publishing it. Thank You also for Your recent visit to Africa.
We sent Your Holiness an Open Letter on 22 August 2022. As expected, we did not hear from anyone; not even a simple acknowledgment of receipt of our email. We raise our concerns again! I recently purchased a reservation to attend Your Wednesday General Assembly. My movement work compelled me to postpone that trip. I am coming to Rome, soon.
Perhaps You are aware, that Pan-African Roots sent an email to His Holiness Pope John Paul II on 25 October 2004, we requested that He “formally and publicly commit, once and for all, that “God Makes No Slaves in the Womb!”, and that human trafficking and enslavement was and is a Sin, was and is illegal, a Crime against Humanity, and a Crime against God. We also requested that the Church disclose all of its slavery era records, worldwide. We have not heard from anyone, as expected.
We sued the Archdiocese of Chicago on 12 May 2006. It has committed more than 561 counts of perjury and $376,341,560.48 in fraud on its Slavery Era Records Disclosure Affidavits from 2003 to 2022. It claimed, on its Affidavits and in its response to our Lawsuit, that it had no predecessor entities. Nothing is further from the truth. The Holy See, and the Dioceses of Rouen and Ottawa; Seville, Havana, St. Augustine, Durango and St. Louis; Westminster, Baltimore and Indianapolis; and other ecclesiastical entities worldwide are its parent, predecessor and sister entities. The Archdiocese of Chicago also claimed that it could find no slavery era records. This is simply not true. Chicago has not submitted its Slavery Era Report, as required by law.
St. Sabina Church committed 132 counts of perjury and $52,186,683.00 in fraud from 2003 to 2022. Counts and fraud grows. It is sad to see that St. Sabina, the premier African Parish in Chicago, is undeniably complicit in these crimes. We have tremendous respect for it, but we will not be silent and complicit. Signatures on Affidavits, Economic Disclosure Statements, and Contracts speak for themselves. The Archdioceses of Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Richmond, CA are complicit as well. We ask Your Holiness to investigate and end these crimes. Perhaps the National Catholic Reporter will investigate and help end them. Humanity, especially African Humanity, will be grateful if it does.
Our May 2006 Lawsuit was dismissed on technicalities on 25 September 2009, as expected, and perhaps hoped for. Bottom-line, it was part of our long-range strategy to help change the historical and legal slave trade narrative. We are winning, so far.
The Judge confirmed in her Memorandum Decision and Order Dismissing The Slavery Era Records Lawsuit, “that Plaintiff is a researcher who compiled publicly disclosed information to offer an important social expose on the City’s business partners.” It was a precedent-setting lawsuit, in many ways.
The much-needed Reform in the Catholic Church, which was referred to in the National Catholic Reporter article, re-confirms our understanding of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s relationship to its parent, predecessor and sister entities, namely that:
“The new law makes clear that the Holy See owns any asset, security or property owned or acquired by a Vatican office or affiliated institution. This “ecclesiastic public property” is “entrusted” to individual departments to use but is destined for the universal needs of the church to fulfill its mission, the law states.
In previous stages of Francis’ financial reforms, the Vatican ordered all Vatican offices to submit to standardized annual budgeting and accounting measures. Individual offices, or congregations, were allowed to operate in financial silos before then.”
Pan-African Roots believes that correcting the Church’s two-decade long slavery era records disclosure problem in Chicago is simple. The Archbishop of Chicago need only ask Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and whomever succeeds her in the April 4, 2023 run-off election, to allow the Archdiocese of Chicago 90-days to voluntarily amend its 561+ Affidavits and write it’s Slavery Era Report.
Voluntary amendments to Affidavits, Economic Disclosure Statements and Contracts are allowable, without liability, by law. The issue here is much larger than “white collar crime.” How do we access the value of a Believer, especially youth, knowing that God did not and does not “Make Slaves in the Womb?” Of their knowing that the Catholic Church, the Portuguese Order of Christ and the Spanish Order of Montesa, in compliance with the Kingdom/Empires or Castile and Aragon (Spain) and Portugal founded, and were unjustly enriched by and through the trafficking in and enslavement of more than 6 million African People?
Voluntary amendment is a win-win for all involved. Not one penny need be spent outside the Churches’ evangelical, educational, communications, and administrative budget. This is a question of uncompromisable principles to us, not just budget and law. African People in 125 countries in the world, especially African youth/ students will enthusiastically volunteer to contribute their talent, time and treasury.
The Archdiocese of Chicago has five colleges, three seminaries, and tens of thousands of students / youth. We request that Your Holiness, Archbishop Cupich and Father Pfleger at St. Sabina inspire and unleash these youth/students to help research and author the required Slavery Era Report. Give them a Church-controlled library card, and access to the Churches’ digitized slavery archives. This Project will change their lives, the Church and the World. We are sending copies of this Open Letter to key campuses and churches in the Chicago metro area, the United States, and the World.
We request again, that You unleash the full authority and power of the Papal Magisterium to formally and publicly commit once and for all, that “God Makes No Slaves in the Womb!”, and that You repudiate and revoke all of the Papal Bulls of discovery, human trafficking and enslavement. We also request again that the Church, worldwide, disclose and digitize all of its slavery era records.
Perhaps one of the Churches’ General Assemblies, maybe April 5, 2023, the Wednesday before Easter, can address the theme: “human trafficking and enslavement was and is a Sin, illegal, a Crime against Humanity, a Crime against God.”
More than 1.5 billion African People, the Indigenous Peoples of the Western Hemisphere, and Other Oppressed Peoples Worldwide, should be invited to attend— online and/or in St. Peters Basilica in Rome. We are sure that this General Assembly will break all records for attendance and will be remembered as one of the greatest evangelical events in history.
Your Holiness, please forgive the length of this Open Letter. Who else can we appeal to except You and God? Who else has the capacity and the capability to make this event happen? Where there is a will, there is a way! Pan-African Roots calls on
1 Billion+ African People, and Their Allies, to March—Virtually—to the Holy See!
During Easter Week, Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Sincerely,
Bob Brown,
Director, Pan-African Roots
Organizer for the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party
