A prominent order made up of Catholic priests pledged last year to raise $100 millions to atone for its role in the American slave trade. The Roman Catholic Church would make the largest effort to atone for the slavery of Black Americans in America, according to historians and church leaders.
16 months later, however, cash is only beginning to trickle in.
According to the Jesuit priest, who was leading the fund-raising efforts for the order, he had hoped that he would have received multimillion dollar donations by now in addition the initial $15 million order investment. The trust that the Jesuits set up in partnership with descendants of Catholic priests has received only $180,000.
Alarmed by the slow pace of fund-raising, the leader of the group of descendants that has partnered with the Jesuits wrote to Rome earlier this month, urging the order’s worldwide leader to ensure that the American priests make good on their promise.
According to the priests, the American Jesuits, which relied on slave labor and sold slaves for more than 100 years, had discussed plans last spring to sell all their Maryland plantation lands. They discussed the possibility to transfer the proceeds along with a portion the proceeds from an earlier $57million sale of plantations to the trust. The trust money will be transferred to a foundation that will finance programs for descendants, including scholarships and money in emergency situations, and promote racial reconciliation projects.
Jesuit officials and their descendants claim that the remaining land is still to be sold and that the proceeds from previous land sales have not been transferred to the trust.
“It is becoming obvious to all who look beyond words that Jesuits are not delivering in deed,” Joseph M. Stewart, president and chair of the Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Foundation, wrote in his letter to the Rev. Arturo Sosa was the superior general of Jesuits. “The bottom line is that without your engagement, this partnership seems destined to fail.”
In his letter, Mr. Stewart warned that “hard-liners” within the order maintained the position that they “never enslaved anyone and thus do not ‘owe’ anyone anything.”
Stewart stated that he believed the Jesuit leadership was committed to the partnership in an interview. He described ongoing meetings and conversations. He stated that the priests needed to do more than just talk to the descendant community.
He also asked Father Sosa for help in completing the land sales and transferring the proceeds of the land sale by the end of the year. He also requested that Father Sosa secure the $100 million pledge by the next year. He also requested the order to deposit $1 billion into the trust before 2029.
The Jesuits have been asked by the descendants to raise $1 billion for their foundation. The Jesuits stated they support the long-term goal but have not set a timetable.
Father Sosa’s spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment.
“We’re challenging them to be more expeditious,” said Mr. Stewart, a retired corporate executive whose ancestors were sold by the Jesuits in 1838 to save Georgetown University from financial ruin, Jesuit archival records show. “How long does it take to do this if you’re committed to it?”
The Rev. Brian G. Paulson, president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, along with the nation’s senior Jesuit leaders said they remained “deeply devoted to our historic partnership with the descendant community and to working together for racial reconciliation and healing in this country.”
Father Paulson and the provincial leaders said they “share in the concern of Mr. Joseph Stewart and other descendant leaders regarding the pace of our fund-raising efforts,” adding that they were “continuing to work with our network partners to secure resources.”
The Jesuits negotiating with the descendants’ group over the former plantation lands said that they had hired two outside firms to facilitate the sale of the remaining land, and that they were “in discussions” about the $57 million land sale and how a portion of those proceeds might benefit the descendants’ trust.
The $100 million pledge by the Jesuits was announced in March 2021. This was part of their efforts for repartee for their past profiting from slave labor. The order relied on the plantations and slave labor to sustain the clergy and to help finance the construction and the day-to-day operations of churches and schools, including Georgetown, the nation’s first Catholic institution of higher learning.
At the time of the announcement, they said that they had already deposited $15 million in the descendants’ trust. They also hired a fund-raising company with the goal of raising the remaining $100 million over three to five years. After learning in The New York Times that the Jesuits had sold Georgetown’s ancestors, descendants began to press for negotiations.
The Rev. Timothy P. Kesicki was the former president of Jesuit Conference and helped to broker the initial agreement between the Jesuits, the group of descendants and the Jesuits. He said in an interview that they understood his frustrations.
“I had hoped to be further along,” said Father Kesicki, who said he had hoped that the Jesuits would have secured about a third of the $100 million pledge by now for the trust, including the order’s initial investment of $15 million.
Father Kesicki, who now serves as chair of the trust, and others familiar with the Jesuits’ efforts pointed to a number of challenges, including the organizational structure of the order, which requires multiple signoffs from multiple people on significant decisions, and the complexity involved in the land deals.
Father Kesicki also said that it takes time to build a major fund-raising campaign.
“But we need to show more growth,” he said, “and that’s a challenge and a pressure that I carry every day.”
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