Slavery and the U.S. Catholic Church: Confronting History and the Case for Reparations

Rackham Building Rackham Amphitheatre

915 E Washington St.

Ann Arbor, MI 48104

In 1838, a group of America’s most prominent Catholic priests sold 272 enslaved people to save their largest mission project, what is now Georgetown University. Journalist, author, and NYU professor Rachel Swarns followed one family through nearly two centuries of indentured servitude and enslavement to uncover the harrowing origin story of the Catholic Church in the United States. Through the saga of the Mahoney family, Swarns illustrates how the Church relied on slave labor and slave sales to sustain its operations and to help finance its expansion.

Rachel Swarns, NY Times journalist, author and professor

Wallace House Center for Journalists, Center for Racial Justice, housed at the Ford School