During the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and the Catholic Church were among the largest slave holders in the United States.
On Oct. 24, the Ignatian Volunteer Corps hosted a forum at St. Thomas More in St. Paul to discuss the Jesuits’ sale of 272 enslaved men, women and children at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and the efforts being made toward racial reconciliation between the Church and the descendants of those who were enslaved.
Archbishop Bernard Hebda moderated the session. He was joined by Monique Maddox, president of the Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Foundation, and Jesuit Father Tim Kesicki, past president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States and current board chair of the Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Trust. They discussed the foundation, the funds they raise to improve the lives of descendants and how they are working toward reconciliation and justice.
In 1838, the Catholic Church was one of the largest slave holders in the United States. Georgetown University, which was beginning the Jesuit goal of establishing a network of Jesuit universities throughout the country, was struggling under debt to save the school from financial ruin. Its leaders decided to sell 272 of the men, women and children they held as slaves. This information surfaced in 2016 when a New York Times story asked the question of what Georgetown owes the descendants of these enslaved people.
“Many in the Church have gained some awareness of the history of this event since it came into view about eight years ago. It has rightfully shaken people on both sides of the story, and most importantly, it has inspired many of them to work to come around to the same side,” said Steven Hawkins, director of the Ignatian Volunteer Corps Twin Cities.
The New York Times article is how Maddox, a direct descendant of slaves sold in Georgetown, learned about members of the Church — the Church that had been her bedrock of faith — beating, enslaving and selling her ancestors. Maddox is a member of Our Lady of Grace in Edina and serves on the board of directors for the St. Paul-based Catholic Community Foundation.
After learning of Georgetown University’s ties to slavery and her direct connection to several of the slaves held by the Jesuits, in 2017 Maddox was invited to Georgetown to receive an apology made to living descendants.
“This came after our family had petitioned to Rome, to the Jesuit superior, to send some visitors to the United States to allow us to create a foundation, to allow us to begin a path of reconciliation with our Church,” Maddox said. “We love our Church. Our faith had been carried on with us. After that, the descendant families began to meet to organize and figure out what is a proper response to this history. We began forming the Descendants Association and different groups on how to reunite our families. We also came together through racial healing dialogues for two years with the Jesuits –– two years of very messy, very hard conversations about this history. And out of that, we came up with the Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Foundation.”
Specifically, on Sept. 20, 2019, the Descendants Association, along with the president of the Jesuits Conference in the U.S. and the U.S. Provincials of the Society of Jesus, signed a joint memorandum to establish a $1 billion irrevocable trust and the Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Foundation.
The foundation’s goal is to invest in the education of current and future generations of descendants, to provide for the safety and well-being of older adult descendants and to offer racial healing programs for this deep wound. In 2023, Georgetown University and the Jesuits continued their funding efforts by gifting $27 million to the foundation.
“We want to do something bigger than ourselves,” Maddox said. “We want to create a foundation that is going to be around forever, and we want to have those pillars around that foundation be centered on uplifting a community that has been harmed through systemic racism,” Maddox said. They created a scholarship program, offering post-secondary support for students who are descendants, who could attend whatever institution they want. They also expanded the mission to include caring for older adults and the infirm.
“We also said we want to do something bigger than just the descendant community. We want to uplift a nation of people who have been harmed,” Maddox said. “And so, we dedicated 50 percent of our dollars to go to truth, racial healing and transformation programs, so that a whole tide of people can benefit from any dollars that go into this foundation. We’re not about lining our pockets. We’re about helping the greater mankind of all people. We’re about love –– love for our fellow humans and love for our Church. And what better way to do that than to help everyone.”
“We know that the United States is a litigious society, and harms are often dealt with (through) settlements, or we arrange some compensatory amount to bring it to conclusion, but there is no settling with this history,” Father Kesicki said. “The foundation is part money, but it’s an equal part partnership that we’re together for life and beyond that. This is in perpetuity. This is a moral response, not a legal response. It’s a moral response that we hope would drive other organizations because until we, and every Christian organization and government, owns its truth and develops partnerships like this, I think every effort at anti-racism is a Band-Aid on a deeper wound that needs to heal.”
Archbishop Hebda added that while this issue is very specific for the Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Foundation and the descendants of the Georgetown slaves, the issue is much broader, even within the Catholic Church.
“In so many ways, the whole Church is looking at you and at this process as a way of helping us go into some of these difficult discussions, and especially as we try to teach our young people,” Archbishop Hebda said. “There are some really painful parts of our own Church history here, and how important is the idea of truth telling, but always with that hope of reconciliation.”
Today, the Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Foundation is a full-time ministry for Father Kesicki and Maddox. Prior to founding the organization, Maddox was a successful corporate executive and two years away from retirement. But Maddox sees her role in the foundation as life-giving, legacy-building work.
“I wanted to reconcile with our Church. Week after week, I went to adoration and prayed about this. How could I look at my priest again? How could I stay in this Church? How am I going to feel such anger and shame and live the rest of my life that way? I couldn’t do that,” Maddox said. “Week after week, you could find me in the adoration chapel, on my knees, praying for those priests who enslaved our families, praying for my ancestors and how they kept the faith, praying for understanding, wisdom, guidance, courage, consolation. This was the only way for me. That’s what God told me at that moment, and that is why I do this work.”
Lynette Graham attended the panel with 10 others from her parish, St. Peter Claver in St. Paul. As a descendant of slaves, Graham found it powerful to “have a priest and a descendant of slaves be able to come together and create forgiveness and reconciliation and see the joy that can come from that.”
“To say that I am going to be the priest that accompanies descendants is for me, perhaps the easiest ‘yes,’ I have ever said to God,” Father Kesicki said. “There is immense joy in this work. It’s difficult. It can be frustrating, but we meet every day because we’re doing the work of the foundation. We have as much laughter as we have tears, and we’re growing closer as families and as brother and sister in the Lord.”
