Skin Colour and Priesthood. Debating Bodily Differences in Early Modern Catholicism*

Abstract

Can people of different skin colours become Catholic priests? What may seem self-evident from today's perspective, Catholic theologians and canon lawyers controversially debated in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. While most authors agreed that colour per se was not a problematic factor, an increasing number argued that non-white individuals should not serve as priests in white communities because of the negative reactions they would provoke there. This article argues that by taking this “perspectivist view” the Catholic Church could claim universality and flexibility in its admission policy whereas, in fact, it incorporated and reinforced anti-Blackness. The article analyses the hitherto unexplored history of this debate, situates it within broader thinking about bodily differences in an increasingly global Catholic world and shows how it intersected with practical issues surrounding the establishment of an indigenous clergy throughout the Catholic empires and missionary zones.