Contrary to (some) popular belief, St Paul firmly opposed the institution of slavery: he likened it to the very worst condition of life, the burden of sin (‘slaves to sin’ – Romans 6:20); he celebrated liberation from bondage to the Law with the words, ‘It is for freedom Christ has set us free!’ (Galatians 5:1); and he specifically denounced slave traders (1 Timothy 1:10) in one of his lists of mortal sins.
St Josephine Bakhita, patron saint of Sudan and of victims of human trafficking, would have understood St Paul perfectly. Delirious on her deathbed and remembering her childhood, she once cried out to ‘loosen the chains’ because they were ‘too heavy’. This is someone who had experienced first-hand the evil injustice of slavery.
SOLD INTO SLAVERY
A well-connected girl from the village of Olgossa in the Darfur region of Sudan, Bakhita was kidnapped and sold into slavery at an age so young that she forgot her birth name and adopted the ironic one given her by the slave traders: ‘Bakhita’ means ‘Lucky One’.
The descriptions of the sadistic punishments inflicted on Bakhita are not for repeating; she later said that one wound had not healed when another was inflicted. She was bought and sold repeatedly and lived at the mercy (if that could ever be the right word) of many masters, for 12 years. Once, she was beaten so badly (possibly for the simple error of breaking a vase) that she was unable to leave her bed of straw for a month.
Things began to change for Bakhita when, in 1882, she was bought in Khartoum by the Italian vice-consul Callisto Legnini, who then gave her to a friend, Augusto Michieli, with whose family Bakhita moved to Italy. When members of the family briefly returned to Sudan, Bakhita was left in the care of the Canossian Sisters in Venice.
SPIRIT OF HOPE
There Bakhita was introduced to the central tenets of Christianity: love, faith, and – especially in her case – the Spirit of hope.
When her owners intended a permanent return to Sudan, Bakhita was able to use judicial processes to win her freedom, since Italian law did not recognise slavery as legal.
In 1890, Bakhita was baptised Josephine Margaret Fortunata. Six years later she took her vows as a Canossian Sister, a vocation she embraced for the rest of her life. ‘Those holy Mothers instructed me with heroic patience,’ she said, ‘and brought me into a relationship with God whom, ever since I was a child, I had felt in my heart without knowing who he was.’
Had Bakhita become bitter and full of hatred for her enslavers, we would not be surprised. We live in an age obsessed with living on grudges borne of past injustice. But when Jesus said, ‘Leave the dead to bury their dead’ (Matthew 8:22), he was in part suggesting that we should not allow the past to cripple us in the present.
Instead, when asked what she would do if she met her kidnappers again, Bakhita generously replied, ‘I would kneel and kiss their hands. For, if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian.’
FREEDOM OF SAINTS
On 10 February 1993, in Sudan, Pope John Paul II celebrated the (then) Blessed Bakhita, echoing St Paul’s mighty thought: ‘The daughter of Sudan sold into slavery as a living piece of merchandise … (is) … free with the freedom of the saints!’
For Bakhita, like many a saint, was driven not by vengeance or a search for recompense, but rather, hope: ‘I am definitely loved, and whatever happens to me – I am awaited by this love. And so, my life is good.’
Biography
St Josephine Bakhita
1869 -1947
Feast day: 8 February
Patron saint of victims of modern slavery