Month: April 2026

Slavery and the Catholic Church: Father John Maxwell’s neglected study

The following republishes a post from almost five years ago. 

In a footnote to a recent post, I referred to Father John Francis Maxwell’s vastly underappreciated Slavery and the Catholic Church: The History of Catholic Teaching concerning the Moral Legitimacy of the Institution of Slavery. Barry Rose Publishers, located in Chichester (UK), published it in 1975 in association with the Anti-Slavery Society for the Protection of Human Rights (its name from 1956 to 1990; it’s now the Anti-Slavery International). A foreword was provided by the Right Honorable Richard Wilberforce, Lord Wilberforce, C.M.G, O.B.E., great grandson of the abolitionist William Wilberforce.

Ten years ago [i.e., in 2011] I posted a facsimile of the full text of Maxwell’s book on my old site. I hope that someone with the authority to do so will retype Slavery and the Catholic Church either from my pdf or a physical copy of the book and cause it to be published as a searchable eBook.

Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to discover who, if anyone, has the copyright to the book. Can a reader point me in the right direction? Here’s my homework to date.

Father Maxwell wrote in his preface: “The author wishes to record his thanks to the Most Reverend Cyril C. Cowderoy, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Southwark, who released him from parochial duties between 1966 and 1973 and enabled him to do full-time research.”

Unless there were two Father John Maxwells assigned to the Diocese of Southwark (or I’m overlooking some other possibility), then the author died on August 19, 2007.

Six years later, I wrote to the Secretary and Webmaster of the Archdiocese of Southwark about Fr. Maxwell. I did not hear back. Today [June 10, 2021] I reached out again to that person on LinkedIn.

Barry Rose, who published the book in 1975 when he was 52, passed away in 2005 at age 82. He sold the company; its new owners renamed it Barry Rose Law Publishers Ltd. An internet search yields an address (5 East Row, PO19 1PG, Chichester, West Sussex England), a phone number (01243 783637), and an email address, which I used today to inquire about who holds the copyright. Minutes later I got this bounce-back:

Address not found: Your message wasn’t delivered to books@barry-rose-law.co.uk because the domain barry-rose-law.co.uk couldn’t be found.

If you know anyone who knows how to get to the bottom of this copyright matter, I’d be grateful to hear from him or her. Slavery and the Catholic Church deserves a better platform than my old site (which, like its owner, won’t be around forever). [Given the subject matter, it is ironic that the search for copyright might limit the reach of this study.—A.G.F.]

What reinforced my conviction was a long, one-star 2015 Amazon “review” of Slavery and the Catholic Church by one “Jeri” entitled “The information in this book is biased and poorly organized.” It starts with this sentence fragment—”A biased and confusing book which leaves out the most important historical points”—and goes downhill from there. Continue reading “Slavery and the Catholic Church: Father John Maxwell’s neglected study”

Christian Individualism and Dialectic, Part 1: A Daunting Task Beckons

[Also on Substack.] The daunting task arises out of my return to philosophy as the launch of my Christian Individualism: The Maverick Biblical Workmanship of Otis Q. Sellers approaches. The book’s not out yet, but I must begin to consider what I will focus on once it is.

I’m returning to philosophy, not to try to solve its problems, but rather to identify the problem that all writers, trained in philosophy or not, face as soon as they affirm or deny anything of substance, namely, the problem of diversity in philosophy.

I call this the problem, or rather “metaproblem,” of dialectic. A writer can evade it, of course, but not integrally. To address the metaproblem, I’ll need a metaphilosophy, which seeks to solve not traditional philosophical problems, but rather the problem of philosophy (or theology) itself, the problem that attaches to the maddening array of choices these fields present to the inquirer.

I will be testing the foundation laid out in Philosophy after Christ: Thinking God’s Thoughts after Him and more doctrinally articulated in my new book, cited above.

The foundation for this daunting task is, as I hope you might expect, Christ as He’s revealed in His Word as His Spirit has illuminated it for me with the help of those in whom He’s similarly worked.

You cannot, however, predict from generic information about me how I will approach the problem of dialectic. There will be nothing cookie-cutter or off-the-shelf about it. I promise not to make your eyes glaze over by intoning “thesis, antithesis, synthesis.” Do not overlook the material, some written by me, referenced in the notes. They will prove useful for future installments of this series. Continue reading “Christian Individualism and Dialectic, Part 1: A Daunting Task Beckons”