SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
newsImage depicts Bolivian trade unionists on strike in La Paz, Bolivia.
Long preamble/summary below of recent news events.
::: spoiler summary The Iran ceasefire is grinding on. After a brief period over the weekend of heightened activity where it seemed that US strikes might be resuming, Trump announced a "Memorandum of Understanding" with Iran, which initially appeared to be an agreement along Iran's demands.
For those not following along with the diplomatic minutia, Iran's position for several weeks has been that the nuclear issue must be discussed separately - because, well, last time they started discussing the nuclear issue with the US, they got fucking bombed - and so have proposed a two-stage negotiation where the war is first officially ended with certain preconditions (e.g. the US has to end sanctions and unfreeze assets and presumably withdraw at least some military assets), and then the second stage will begin in which the nuclear issue is handled.
The reason why a deal has still not been signed after all this time is because the US disagrees with doing it this way, and wants the nuclear issue to be handled right away (and obviously also objects with things like Iran retaining control of the Strait). Therefore, Trump's announcement appeared to be him finally accepting reality, but it quickly became apparent that this was just another market manipulation. I'm definitely in the camp among several other analysts that believes another round of war is going to happen barring some very sudden circumstances (e.g. Trump being forced out of power one way or another, or Iran obtaining a nuke) because the US still seems agreement-incapable. And in Lebanon, consternation for the Zionists against Hezbollah's attacks continues as the FPV drone threat only continues to increase despite them desperately seeking countermeasures.
As I've been perhaps too focussed on Iran lately, here's a brief roundup of big news events from the last month or so.
-
Orban losing power: Pretty cool, though his replacement being Neoliberal #2980329891 means that big changes seem unlikely.
-
Strikes in Bolivia against that dipshit Paz: Very nice to see, as it appears that Bolivia has among the best widespread on-the-ground popular support for worker-centric policies and politicians in Latin America that makes it so they can genuinely pressure power (already, the Labor Minister has resigned).
-
Situation in the Sahel: "Mysterious" third parties sponsored a big offensive against the AES which they largely repelled with help from Russia. The situation there is still a little tenuous as I understand it with a greater focus by anti-government forces on blockades of cities to cause internal revolts. This tactic is currently broadly failing as armed convoys are getting fuel and food into the cities, but figures like Traore are aware that more needs to be done.
-
Ukraine War: Aside from the usual grinding advance by Russia on the front, there have been back-and-forth missile and drone strikes as Ukraine hit some targets in the outskirts of Moscow with drones and then Russia fired a shitload of missiles, including the iconic Oreshnik, directly at Kiev, as Simplicius and others have covered in greater detail.
I could go on and on with the recent aggressions against Cuba, Modi's recent victories in India and the AI/chip tech war between China and the US but this preamble has to end at some point due to the character limit. :::
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
::: spoiler The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists' destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
:::
::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
:::
Iran says they aren't in a hurry to sign anything. oil is at 100$ and expected to rise beyond 150-200 towards the end of 2026.
Our interesting times are about to get even more interesting!
President Trump posted on Truth Social Monday demanding that all countries involved in Iran negotiations simultaneously sign the Abraham Accords, describing it as a prerequisite for any deal and warning those who refuse would be excluded from the agreement.
“It should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum, simultaneously, sign onto the Abraham Accords,” Trump wrote, naming Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain as targets. The UAE and Bahrain are already members.
🔸Trump warned: “If they don’t, they should not be part of this Deal in that it shows bad intention.”
🔸He said it “should start with the immediate signing by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and everybody else should follow suit.”
🔸He also dangled Iran’s own potential membership, writing: “If Iran signs its Agreement with me… it would be an Honor to have them also be part of this unparalleled World Coalition.”
🔹The Abraham Accords, brokered during Trump’s first term, normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Kazakhstan. Trump’s demand would require the mediating countries to recognize Israel and normalize relations as a condition of ending the Iran war — a significant ask given that Saudi Arabia has publicly conditioned any normalization on a credible and irreversible path to Palestinian statehood, a position shared in various forms by Turkey, Egypt, and others on the list.
🔹The demand comes as the U.S. has allowed Israel to continue the daily killing of Palestinians in Gaza for more than seven months since the October 2025 Trump-brokered ceasefire, with over 900 Palestinians killed since the agreement was approved by Israel. The U.S. and Israel are also deliberately blocking minimum levels of food, medicine, shelter, fuel, and reconstruction aid.
🔹President Trump has also removed sanctions on the most violent Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, where rampant state-backed settler violence to uproot Palestinian families has gone unchecked since the start of his second term.
🔹Trump closed his social media post with a warning: “It will only be a Great Deal for all or, no Deal at all — Back to the Battlefront and shooting, but bigger and stronger than ever before.”
insanely dumb idea that one or several of his israeli handlers put into his melting noggin. KSA, Turkey and pakistan are already in a security pact to explicitly counter the Israel-UAE abraham real estate accords. the unofficial US position in the negotiations is to just ignore trump's tweet and to be honest it's hard to ignore when it's shit like this.
turkey and egypt being most valiant dogs of usa empire and still getting humiliated is funny bit tbh. they will recognize entity 50 times before getting an economy
Forcing countries to sign a non-agression pact with the ~~nazis~~ zionists. Yeah, worked well last time, lets try it again
The video in the replies about the strike that caused the highest ranking casualty so far in the recent invasion of Lebanon is quite amazing too.
TASS: Russian forces launching strikes on military-industrial complex sites in Kiev — MFA
"All of this has become the last straw," the ministry noted, referring to Kiev’s strikes against civilians on Russian territory following the attack on Starobelsk. "Under the current circumstances, the Russian Armed Forces are launching a series of systematic strikes against Ukrainian military-industrial complex facilities in Kiev, including specific sites for the design, production, programming, and preparation for the use of drones employed by the Kiev regime with the assistance of NATO specialists responsible for supplying components, providing intelligence, and guidance," the statement noted.
The Foreign Ministry emphasized that "strikes will also be directed at decision-making centers and command posts." "Given that these facilities are scattered throughout Kiev, we warn foreign citizens, including diplomatic mission and international organization representative office personnel, of the need to leave the city as soon as possible. We also warn Ukrainian capital residents not to approach Zelensky’s regime's military and administrative infrastructure facilities," the diplomats warned.
PS: There were indeed two Oreshniks launched during the last attack. One struck an airfield in Bila Tserkva, near Kiev. The other struck somewhere near the front line around Donetsk. Some say it malfunctioned and impacted Russian-held territory, but Rybar says it hit a target near Slavyansk/Kramatorsk. It's clear that Russia doesn't want to use this weapon on heavily populated areas.
Iran Screenshot did an on the ground investigation into the bizarre claims by NYT that the US-israel bombed ex-president Ahmadinejad's home to "free him from house arrest".
Unsurprisingly, the ex-president was not under house arrest.
https://xcancel.com/iranscreenshot/status/2058508933325619613
(Sorry in advance for the link, the news group doesn't have their own website.)
They wanted him under his house, taking a rest
"Freeing him from house arrest by sending him to the shadow realm" is certainly an interesting excuse
It is the classic model of American liberation
The Pope released his Magnifica Humanitas encyclical letter today, warning about the dangers of AI. He compares those currently building the AI-powered technocratic dystopia to the builders of the Tower of Babel, which in the eyes of the Church is Very Bad. It has some good stuff (as much as you could reasonably hope from a Pope) like the following:
More gravely, the pervasive technocratic paradigm in which we are immersed, and that is amplified by the digital revolution and AI, threatens to normalize an anti-human vision. In that vision, the fullness of life is equated with having more, reducing weakness, eliminating uncertainty and exerting total control. When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion.
He also writes about how the economic system and profit cannot take primacy over human dignity:
The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs, because the human person is an end, not a means, and the economic order must remain subordinate to human dignity and the common good.
Economic models that exalt efficiency and individual success often view investment in disadvantaged people or in those with slower development paths as useless or inconvenient, as if their futures depended solely on their ability to keep pace with the “winners.” In reality, a just society requires a vigilant State and civil institutions that are capable of overcoming the singular mentality of efficiency, and of ensuring that resources, creative solutions and regulations favor the most vulnerable.
Also has some fun stuff about finance:
In recent years, finance has increased in importance and has undergone significant innovation, driven partly by the introduction of cryptocurrencies. The reflections and observations contained in the teaching of my predecessors, particularly in their Encyclicals, have highlighted how the financial intermediation sector, “when operating without the necessary anthropological and moral foundations, has not only produced manifest abuses and injustice, but also demonstrated a capacity to create systemic and worldwide economic crisis.” It is likewise the case that income from capital risks replacing income from labor, which is often confined to the margins of the economic system’s primary interests. Yet savings transformed into credit for the real economy, thereby creating both jobs and self-employed work, remain central for development and the investments that must accompany ongoing transitions. The social function of credit remains irreplaceable. Finance for its own sake is fundamentally different from finance aimed at the development, creation and evolution of work.
That said, this particular line is making me lose my mind:
For this reason, certain works have taken on an almost prophetic significance: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony can be seen as a desire for unity; Guernica as a denunciation of dehumanization; Schindler’s List as a call not to consign the past to oblivion.
Comparing a fucking Spielberg film to the former two immortal works of art is sending me.
You can read the whole thing here: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html
His section on modern day slavery is actually rather good.
This distorted view of the human person is reflected today in various forms of servitude directly linked to the digital economy. Nothing in the world of AI is immaterial or magical. Every seemingly immediate and flawless response is the result of a long chain of mediation, involving vast networks of natural resources, energy infrastructure and, above all, people. A significant part of the digital economy’s functioning relies on the silent work of millions of people engaged in essential yet largely unseen activities, such as data labeling, model training and content moderation, often involving disturbing material. In many cases, these workers are young people, predominantly women, working under demanding conditions for minimal wages. Added to this invisible labor is the even harsher work of extracting the resources required for the production of the devices and microprocessors on which AI depends. In some regions of the world, children and adolescents work in dangerous conditions, crushing the materials from which rare earth elements are extracted. The bodies of these people are scarred, injured and worn down so that computational flow may continue uninterruptedly. Furthermore, criminal networks use online platforms, messaging systems, anonymous payment methods and profiling techniques in order to recruit, control and transport victims of trafficking — very often minors — reducing men and women to “data” to be tracked and “packages” to be moved around within the same digital circuits that support much of the global economy. This reality deeply challenges the moral conscience of our time. It is not enough to invoke efficiency, nor to celebrate the benefits of innovation, if they are built on a chain of exploitation that remains deliberately hidden. If technology promises emancipation, yet produces new forms of global subordination, it stands in contradiction to the fundamental principle of human dignity.
He even apologies for the Church supporting slavery.
Yet neither can we deny or diminish the delay with which both society and the Church came to denounce the scourge of slavery. In antiquity and the Middle Ages many individuals and even ecclesiastical institutions had slaves. Already in the early modern period, the Apostolic See of Rome, responding to requests from Sovereigns, intervened several times in order to regulate and legitimize forms of subjugation, and, in certain cases, the enslavement of “infidels.” [174] It was only in the nineteenth century that a formal, absolute and universal condemnation of slavery was clearly articulated, notably under Pope Leo XIII. [175] This development offers a clear example of the Church’s growth in understanding the perennial truths of Revelation that she safeguards. Although there was not always consistency in practice — given that slavery was long tolerated before being unequivocally condemned — there has been a continuous affirmation throughout history of the dignity of every human being, created in the image of God, even if it took eighteen centuries for its full incompatibility with slavery to be explicitly recognized. This constitutes a wound in Christian memory, one from which we cannot consider ourselves detached. [176] It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord. For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon.
You know what, at this point I'll take a Butlerian Crusade if that's what it takes
As someone who has expressed some discomfort at the left’s occasional meme-ish appreciation of the Catholic Church… I am developing an appreciation of Leo to some extent. Francis I felt was a master at saying things that the western press would latch onto as “woke” but once you scratched the surface, would be revealed as not really all that different from the past. I think Francis was well aware of this and used it to make himself seem like more of a progressive force than he actually was. He was partly sincere, sure. But he also knew how to phrase a sound bite that would appear one way, but hide something else that wasn’t quite what the sound bite implied. Better than his predecessors, but that’s such an incredibly low bar.
Leo, on the other hand, has actually made fairly enlightened statements like this on AI; or when he mentioned that the focus on sexual sins should be placed well below a focus on justice and helping others. And when he does speak, it seems like the meaning is plain without any need to guess at what exactly he’s getting at. I like that about him. A straight-shooter, even if he represents a regressive institution.
A lot of what Francis actually did, at least to my understanding a lapsed cradle Catholic, was basically internal stuff to sideline or purge a bunch of the real reactionary psychos from the church hierarchy/deep state. I've been told by some people I generally trust to know more about it than me that basically there is no Leo without Francis getting rid of a bunch of the old guard and replacing them with his own guys. Also, the Church's growth is no longer in the West. It's Africa and maintaining its presence/fighting the evangelical movement in Latin America, plus maybe some growth in Asia. That eventually necessitates a shift in church policy and teachings. But yeah, it's still the Catholic Church, you can't completely remove all the freaks and you shouldn't expect it to lead a communist revolution.
The funny thing about the catholic church is that it is Conservative, with a capital C and in an almost primordial sense of the word. It is the inverse of a revolutionary vanguard, which is not to say that it necessarily aligns itself with reactionary forces. It may, in so far as the church is also a local institution and if everyone in charge of the local branch is a reactionary then the church's resources will be marshalled in a reactionary fashion. But that is not a natural alliance, the catholic church shepherds a medieval worldview and, as such, it entered the industrial era with its own brand of neoconservative thought.
Catholic corporativism had a lot to offer to the neo absolutist and arch reactionary regimes of Europe. But there were limits, much in the same way that some neoconservative philosophy is only partially useful to Fascism. Everyone knows about Nietzsche being bastardized by the Nazis, but even an arch elitist like Spengler was persona non grata for a number of reasons. The catholic church is similar, it is useful to the american empire because, by coincidence, the church is inane about contraception. But even if the Pope defends, like, a limited, charity centered paradigm of redistribution then he's portrayed as anti Christ somehow.
This is all to say that, if you are leftist and catholicism is part of your community's superstructure then you are best served by picking your battles and arguing the material reality of things.
If the captains of US tech are calling someone “the anti-christ” then there’s a good chance I’m going to critically support whoever that is
Legit found myself wanting to treat his piece as a serious grounding for a Secular discussion of AI. Can his positions be held without a commitment to God™? I think so, but it would require real scholarship to demonstrate. The arguments made and topic matter deserve serious moral consideration, though, and he's getting it (mostly) right starting from very different assumptions than the a-religious/pluralist left.
In reality, a just society requires a vigilant State and civil institutions that are capable of overcoming the singular mentality of efficiency, and of ensuring that resources, creative solutions and regulations favor the most vulnerable.
the state has been the opposite of that, bro, for 40 years, let it go.
In that vision, the fullness of life is equated with having more, reducing weakness, eliminating uncertainty and exerting total control.
which is fine aspiration to have for humans, unfortunately, that aspiration is only allowed for bourgeoisie
*bro hadn't mentioned sanctions once, but did spend his time about nebulous cybersecurity, jihadi operatives and criminal networks. oh well, feely sections about humans are fine
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/22/marco-rubio-nears-goal-topple-cuba-government
"Latinowashing imperialist warmongering is cool and good", says Mussolini Polpot, a Republican political strategist
Another W for nominative determinism
Senator Booker attacks Iran deal from the right
New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker told CNN’s State of the Union that Trump was being “played as a fool” in negotiations with Iran. “This weak nation has put America in a stalemate.”
Booker’s framing drew sharp criticism from anti-war commentators. Journalist Erik Sperling noted that Booker was attacking Trump exclusively from the right, including by citing the war’s failure to prevent Iran from what Booker described as “fueling their terrorist proxies.”
Media critic Adam Johnson added that Booker’s positioning amounted to “We’re The Competent Imperialists,” saying it was “incoherent, tedious and draws no meaningful contrast” with the administration.
"We would bomb those girls schools competently, now vote and donate"
Booker is mad that the Trump admin used two Tomahawks on that one school instead of using two Tomahawks to destroy two schools.
it was a triple-tap btw, the American demons hit it with three missiles at three different times
According to Minab's mayor and the Iranian Ministry of Education, the school was triple tapped, being struck three times in total.
Three times they purposefully made the choice to bomb the school. Oh God curse them.
Remember when the bastards originally claimed that it was an Iranian misfire!?!?!
Endless lies and depravity
the demons did the same with Al-Shifa hospital, bourgeois media debated it endlessly
now that all 36 hospitals have been demolished it just isn't brought up
While it is quite clear that Booker is an imperialist, what I take from this is that he stands for literally nothing. He is bereft of anything resembling a principle. He’s saying this because it is the opposite of what Trump is doing, because Booker is an empty husk of a person whose mouth algorithmically and indifferently blabs whatever is in his electoral interest.
Booker is one of the most pro-Zionist Democrat senators. He both accepts boatloads of AIPAC money and also seems to genuinely believe in the Zionist project (like Biden, one of his few genuine beliefs). All this seems on brand for him.
Sen. Lindsey Graham Backs Trump’s Suggestion To Tie Any Iran Deal To Expanding Abraham Accords
Trump suggested tying the Iran peace deal to the Abraham accords, met with silence from the gulf states.
Lindsey Graham likes the idea because it would make any peace deal impossible to achieve.
I, for one, am totally shocked that the Gulf states aren't running to support such a plan after the staunch support they got from the US and Israel when Iran attacked them. Especially Israel, they really pitched in ~~and did a few false flag attacks on their energy infrastructure~~!
We must seize power, send the President back to his country and we indigenous must govern ourselves - Bolivia's Quechua communities in Potosí on Day 13 of the general strike against neoliberalism.
send the President back to his country
Rodrigo Paz was born in Spain btw, his Father and Mother were socialists (though not marxists, just one of the many left-wing ideologies in LatAm). He returned to Bolivia when his father and uncle (both presidents) kicked out all the leftists of their party and turned neoliberal, allying themselfs with the Far-Right under General Hugo Banzer. Rodrigo being a nepo failson got a job in the new goverment in the 1990s as a diplomat for Spain.
Here is him with George Bush Senior:
Why experts, emergency crews haven’t been able to find a solution to Garden Grove chemical threat
Angle it just a little bit to the left, imo
For those who, like me, have no idea what this is. The caption of the image in the article
An operations map, showing the expected impact zone of a possible explosion and chemical leak from a hazmat incident at GKN Aerospace in Garden Grove, is posted at the Incident Command Post in the parking lot at the Los Alamitos Race Track on Saturday, May 23, 2026. (Photo by Jeff Antenore, Orange County Register/SCNG)
The joke is that a US Army Reserve facility is just to the left of the blast cone. You have to zoom in on the image.
So that’s why it smelled like blue dog inside the van!
https://archive.ph/eqy9L
fresh slop from the west claims part of the reason there's been a delay in a deal between the imperialists and Iran is because Khamenei is, like, really far away or something
holed up in an undisclosed location, making communication with his envoys difficult and therefore delaying pace of talks with the US.
they don't mention Lebanon even once (bc then maybe a very small fraction of the western npcs who read their state's propaganda would actually look up Lebanon and discover that the zios continue to bomb it several times a day)
Pope Leo XIV makes historic apology for Holy See’s own role in legitimizing slavery - NBC News
::: spoiler Article
History’s first U.S.-born pope, whose family history includes both enslaved people and slave owners, delivered the apology in his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” (Magnificent Humanity), which was released Monday.
Pope Leo XIV made a historic apology on Monday for the role the Holy See itself played in legitimizing slavery and for having failed to condemn it for centuries, calling the Vatican’s record a “wound in Christian memory.”
Past popes have apologized for Christians’ involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. But no pope has ever publicly acknowledged, much less apologized for, the role that past popes themselves played in giving European sovereigns explicit authority to subjugate and enslave “infidels.”
History’s first U.S.-born pope, whose family history includes both enslaved people and slave owners, delivered the apology in his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” (Magnificent Humanity), which was released Monday.
The sweeping manifesto is about safeguarding humanity in an era of increasing reliance on artificial intelligence. Leo raised the trans-Atlantic slave trade in relation to what he called the new forms of slavery and colonialism that the digital revolution is fueling, such as the unregulated labor required to procure rare minerals needed for AI chips.
In doing so, Leo responded to decades of calls by Black American Catholics, activists and scholars for the Holy See to atone for its own role in the colonial-era trade in human beings.
“It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord,” Leo wrote. “For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon.”
The Vatican has insisted that it always upheld the dignity of all human beings as children of God. But a series of 15th-century directives from the Vatican authorized Portuguese sovereigns to conquer Africa and the Americas and enslave non-Christians.
In 1452, for example, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, which gave the Portuguese king and his successors the right “to invade, conquer, fight and subjugate” and take all possessions — including land — of “Saracens, and pagans, and other infidels, and enemies of the name of Christ” anywhere.
The bull also gave the Portuguese permission “to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”
That bull and another issued three years later, Romanus Pontifex, formed the basis of the Doctrine of Discovery, the theory that legitimized the colonial-era seizure of land in Africa and the Americas.
Nicholas V’s permissions to the Portuguese were confirmed or renewed by Pope Callixtus III in 1456, Pope Sixtus IV in 1481, and Pope Leo X in 1514, according to the Rev. Christopher J. Kellerman, a Jesuit priest and author of “All Oppression Shall Cease: A History of Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Catholic Church.”
Spanish kings received the rights for the Americas.
In 2023, the Vatican formally repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, but it never formally rescinded, abrogated or rejected the bulls themselves. The Vatican insists that a later bull, Sublimis Deus in 1537, reaffirmed that Indigenous peoples shouldn’t be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, and weren’t to be enslaved.
In his encyclical, Leo recalled that his namesake, Pope Leo XIII was the first pope to explicitly condemn slavery in 1888, though that was long after many countries had already abolished it. Before that, in antiquity and the Middle Ages, even church institutions had slaves.
In acknowledging the Holy See’s own role and the 15th-century papal bulls, Leo wrote in his encyclical: “Already in the early modern period, the Apostolic See of Rome, responding to the requests of sovereigns, intervened several times in order to regulate and legitimize forms of subjugation, and, in certain cases, including the enslavement of ‘infidels.’”
Leo said that it wasn’t possible to judge the morality of the decisions with today’s standards.
“Yet neither can we deny or diminish the delay with which both society and the church came to denounce the scourge of slavery,” he said.
The pope said that the church has long affirmed the dignity of every human being as the basis of its doctrine, “even if it took eighteen centuries for its full incompatibility with slavery to be explicitly recognized.”
“This constitutes a wound in Christian memory, one from which we cannot consider ourselves detached,” he said.
Leo said that the church today must firmly condemn all forms of trafficking related to the digital technological revolution “if we want to avoid the need to ask for pardon again in the future for having failed to respect the treasure of human dignity that is required by our faith.”
During a 1985 visit to Cameroon, St. John Paul II asked forgiveness of Africans for the slave trade on behalf of Christians who participated in it, but not for the popes’ own role in it. In a 1992 visit to Goree Island, Senegal, which was the largest slave-trading center in West Africa, he denounced the injustice of slavery and called it a “tragedy of a civilization that called itself Christian.”
According to genealogical research published by Henry Louis Gates Jr., 17 of Leo’s American ancestors were Black, listed in census records as mulatto, Black, Creole or a free person of color. His family tree includes slaveholders and enslaved people, Gates wrote in The New York Times.
During a visit to Angola last month, Leo prayed at a Catholic shrine located at the site of an important hub of the African slave trade during Portugal’s colonial rule. While at the Sanctuary of Mama Muxima, Leo recalled the “sorrow and great suffering” Angolans endured for centuries, but he didn’t refer specifically to slavery. :::
2026 Brazilian Elections: New poll confirms Lula has widened the gap with Flávio Bolsonaro - ICL
The result is likely influenced by the audio recordings released by The Intercept website.
::: spoiler Article
A Nexus/BTG poll, conducted between May 22nd and 24th, shows that President Lula has opened up a lead over his main opponent in this year's presidential elections, Flávio Bolsonaro. The Workers' Party (Left-Wing - Social Democracy with a Democratic Socialist Faction) candidate would win both the first and second rounds if the election were held today.
In the most likely first-round scenario, Lula appears with 40% of the voting intentions, increasing his lead over Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (Liberal Party), who has 35%, by 2 percentage points. This result is probably influenced by the audios released by the Intercept website, with dialogues between Flávio and Daniel Vorcaro.
Ronaldo Caiado (Social Democrat Party - Right-Wing Opportunism) has 5%, Romeu Zema (Novo - Far-RIght Libertarian) has 4%, and Renan Santos (Missão - Far-Right Incel) has 3%. Joaquim Barbosa (Christian Democracy - No Real Ideology) has 2%, while Augusto Cury (Avante - Right-Wing Trabalhismo, a form of Brazilian Peronism) and Cabo Daciolo (National Mobilization - Center-Right) each have 1%.
In the second round, Lula would defeat all opponents. In a more plausible scenario, the president would have 47% and Flávio Bolsonaro 43%, representing a 3 percentage point increase in the lead for the Workers' Party candidate.
Lula would have 49% to 38% for Romeu Zema (a 7 percentage point increase in the gap between the two) and 46% against 40% for Ronaldo Caiado (a 2 percentage point increase between the two).
In the spontaneous poll, Lula has 36% of the voting intentions, ten points ahead of Flávio Bolsonaro, who has 26%.
The remaining candidates are far behind: Renan Santos, Romeu Zema, and Ronaldo Caiado each have 2%. Jair Bolsonaro appears with 1%, despite being ineligible. Joaquim Barbosa, Augusto Cury, and Cabo Daciolo did not register any points.
The survey polled 2,045 people between May 22nd and 24th. The margin of error is two percentage points, plus or minus. The survey is registered with the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) under number BR-04193/2026. :::
first
