标签： Europe

On a watershed Monday for the global Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV — the first pontiff born in the United States, with a documented family tree that includes both enslaved people and slave owners — delivered a groundbreaking apology for the Holy See’s own centuries-long role in legitimizing chattel slavery, an act of atonement decades in the making for Black Catholics, scholars and activists worldwide.

While prior popes have offered general apologies for Christian participation in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, no pontiff has ever publicly acknowledged, let alone sought forgiveness for, the explicit authorizations past Vatican leaders granted to European colonial powers to subjugate and enslave non-Christian peoples. This historic admission was included as a core section of Pope Leo’s first encyclical, titled *Magnifica Humanitas* (Magnificent Humanity), a wide-ranging pastoral manifesto focused on protecting human dignity amid the rapid expansion of unregulated artificial intelligence.

In the document, Pope Leo drew a direct line between the colonial-era exploitation of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and what he frames as new forms of dehumanizing enslavement and neocolonialism emerging from the digital revolution, pointing in particular to the abusive, unregulated working conditions faced by miners extracting the rare earth minerals critical for manufacturing AI chips.

“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 apology confronts a long-unaddressed chapter of Vatican history. For decades, the Holy See has maintained that it has always upheld the inherent dignity of all people as children of God. But historical records show that a series of 15th-century papal bulls directly authorized Portuguese monarchs to conquer African and Indigenous American territories and enslave non-Christian peoples. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued *Dum Diversas*, a papal edict that granted the Portuguese crown and its successors the right to “invade, conquer, fight and subjugate” “Saracens, and pagans, and other infidels, and enemies of the name of Christ” across the globe, and explicitly permitted “to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”

That edict, followed three years later by a second bull *Romanus Pontifex*, formed the foundational legal and ideological basis for the Doctrine of Discovery, the framework that legitimized colonial powers’ seizure of Indigenous land across Africa and the Americas. According to Jesuit scholar and author Rev. Christopher J. Kellerman, the permissions granted to Portugal were reaffirmed by subsequent popes: Pope Callixtus III in 1456, Pope Sixtus IV in 1481, and Pope Leo X in 1514, with similar rights later extended to Spanish monarchs for their American holdings.

In 2023, the Vatican formally repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, but it never formally revoked or rejected the original 15th-century papal bulls that underpinned the doctrine. The Holy See has previously pointed to a 1537 edict, *Sublimis Deus*, which affirmed that Indigenous peoples should not be stripped of their liberty or property or enslaved, as evidence of the Church’s long-held position.

In his encyclical, Pope Leo acknowledged that it was not until 1888 that Pope Leo XIII, his namesake, became the first pope to explicitly condemn slavery — a step that came long after many nations had already abolished the trans-Atlantic trade. Centuries earlier, even Church institutions themselves owned enslaved people during antiquity and the Middle Ages.

“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 wrote. He noted that it would be unfair to judge medieval decisions by modern moral standards, but added: “Yet neither can we deny or diminish the delay with which both society and the church came to denounce the scourge of slavery.”

While the Church has long rooted its doctrine in the affirmation of universal human dignity, “even if it took eighteen centuries for its full incompatibility with slavery to be explicitly recognized,” Leo wrote. “This constitutes a wound in Christian memory, one from which we cannot consider ourselves detached.”

Extending this lesson to the present, the pontiff warned that the Church must today firmly condemn all forms of human trafficking and exploitation emerging from the digital technology 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.”

The apology answers decades of persistent calls from Black American Catholics, social justice activists and academic researchers for the Vatican to take formal responsibility for its own role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, rather than only acknowledging general Christian complicity. Prior popes had broached the topic: in 1985, St. John Paul II asked forgiveness from Africans for the slave trade on behalf of participating Christians, but did not name the Vatican or past popes’ role. During a 1992 visit to Senegal’s Goree Island, the largest West African slave trading hub, he denounced slavery as a “tragedy of a civilization that called itself Christian” but stopped short of a formal apology for the Holy See’s specific role.

Genealogical research conducted by prominent scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. confirms the unique personal context of Pope Leo’s apology: 17 of the pontiff’s American ancestors were Black, recorded in census records as mulatto, Black, Creole or free people of color, and his family tree includes both slaveholders and enslaved people. Just one month before issuing the encyclical, Leo visited a Catholic shrine at a major slave trade hub in Angola, where he referenced centuries of suffering for Angolans but did not explicitly address the Vatican’s role. The 2026 apology marks the first time any pope has taken this historic step of accountability.

VILNIUS, Lithuania – In a major cybersecurity incident that has escalated regional security concerns, Lithuanian national authorities have activated top-level alert protocols following the unauthorized exfiltration of over 600,000 records from the country’s official state data registers. Investigators have confirmed that a foreign state is suspected of orchestrating the breach, which has come amid heightened tensions from Russian hybrid operations targeting the Baltic nation.

The General Prosecutor’s Office of Lithuania publicly confirmed the details of the breach on Friday, noting that the leaked data was drawn primarily from the country’s national real estate and legal entity registers. According to official statements, the attackers gained unauthorized access by exploiting valid login credentials belonging to public institutions that are legally permitted to access the registry datasets. In the wake of the security failure, Adrijus Jusas, head of the State Enterprise Centre of Registers, the government body that oversees management of the national data systems, stepped down from his post on Monday.

Immediately following the discovery of the breach, Lithuanian cybersecurity and law enforcement bodies rolled out a series of emergency defensive measures. These included locking the accounts linked to suspicious access activity and enforcing mandatory credential updates for all authorized users to restrict further unauthorized entry, prosecutor officials confirmed.

While investigators have pointed to foreign state involvement as the leading hypothesis, authorities have not publicly named the specific country suspected of carrying out the operation. However, the context of regional security puts the incident in a stark light: as a small European Union and NATO member state with a population of just 2.9 million, Lithuania has long been identified as one of the most frequent targets of Russia’s hybrid warfare campaign against Western Europe, which encompasses everything from sabotage and property destruction to disinformation and influence operations. This history has left the country acutely sensitive to large-scale cross-border cyber intrusions.

Laurynas Kasčiūnas, a leading Lithuanian opposition politician, publicly claimed on social media this Sunday that the data theft is an operation carried out by Russian intelligence, though he has not released any evidence to back up the assertion. Kasčiūnas warned that the compromised dataset may include personal addresses and sensitive identifying information for active intelligence officers, military service members, Lithuanian diplomats, and national political leaders. If confirmed, the leak would give perpetrators actionable intelligence that could enable surveillance, targeted harassment, or coercive pressure operations against the exposed individuals.

A Royal Air Force aircraft carrying UK Defence Secretary John Healey suffered a deliberate GPS signal jamming attack while flying near the Russian border earlier this week, in an incident that has further inflamed already fraught tensions between the West and Moscow.

The disruption occurred Thursday as Healey returned to the United Kingdom following a working visit to Estonia, where he met British troops deployed as part of a NATO military exercise close to the Russian frontier. The Times was the first outlet to break news of the incident, multiple defense sources familiar with the matter confirmed.

Intelligence assessments point to Russia as the perpetrator of the attack, according to initial reporting. The jamming disabled the aircraft’s primary GPS navigation system for the entire three-hour duration of the flight, forcing pilots to switch to backup alternative navigation technologies to complete their journey safely. Notably, this is not the first such incident recorded in the region: in 2024, another RAF jet transporting then-Defence Secretary Grant Shapps also experienced GPS jamming while operating near Russian territory.

At the time of writing, it remains unclear whether Healey was specifically targeted for the attack. The Times noted that the flight’s planned route was publicly visible on commercial aircraft tracking platforms prior to departure, leaving open the possibility that the jamming was part of broader, unspecified Russian activity along the border rather than an intentional strike against the UK’s top defense official. The UK Ministry of Defence has not yet released an official statement on the incident, and declined to comment when contacted by reporters.

The jamming incident comes just one day after new details emerged of a dangerous, separate air encounter between Russian and British military aircraft over the Black Sea last month. On that occasion, two Russian warplanes carried out repeated, aggressive interceptions of an RAF Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft in international airspace.

According to the UK Ministry of Defense, the interception was the most aggressive Russian action against British aircraft since 2022, when a Russian pilot fired an air-to-air missile near a British Rivet Joint in the same area in a widely condemned incident. Last month’s encounter saw a Russian Su-35 fighter approach the British surveillance jet close enough to trigger the RAF plane’s onboard emergency systems and knock out its autopilot. A second Russian Su-27 fighter conducted six dangerous low-altitude passes directly in front of the RAF aircraft, coming within just six meters of the plane’s nose at its closest point.

During his visit to Estonia earlier this week, Healey publicly addressed the Black Sea incident, praising the “outstanding professionalism” of the RAF crew that handled the unsafe interception, while condemning Russia’s “unacceptable” aggressive behavior in international airspace.

Estonia, a Baltic member of NATO, hosts a contingent of British troops as part of the alliance’s collective defense posture along its eastern flank, deployed in response to heightened security threats following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. British service members are currently participating in large-scale NATO military exercises in the region designed to deter further Russian expansion, making the jamming incident a clear show of force amid ongoing standoff between Moscow and the Western alliance.

On a tense Sunday in Ankara, Turkish riot police launched a forcible entry into the headquarters of Turkey’s largest opposition bloc, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), just days after an appellate court invalidated the leadership of current party head Özgür Özel. The operation ignited chaotic clashes between security forces and CHP supporters, who had assembled a makeshift barricade at the building’s entrance to block police access. Thick plumes of tear gas filled the air outside the CHP compound as officers pushed through the defensive line. On-site footage captured CHP members inside the building shouting in protest, hurling objects toward the entryway, and dousing advancing officers with water hoses in a last-ditch attempt to hold the building.

The conflict traces back to a Thursday ruling from Turkey’s appeal court, which annulled the 2025 CHP leadership primary that saw Özel oust 77-year-old former party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Kılıçdaroğlu, who lost the 2023 Turkish presidential election to incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been ordered to retake the leadership position per the court’s decision. The ruling also mandates a full replacement of CHP’s current executive committee, and effectively strips all recent party decisions of legal recognition. The lower court had previously thrown out claims of vote-buying surrounding the 2025 primary, a ruling the appeal court explicitly overturned in its new decision.

Hours before the police operation, the CHP had publicly pledged to defy the controversial court order, a move widely interpreted as a further escalation of political tensions that have consolidated Erdoğan’s authority over Turkey nearly 23 years after he first took office as prime minister. As police moved into the building, Özel released an urgent video statement to social platform X declaring “We are under attack.” Following the completion of the police intervention, Özel exited the CHP headquarters and led a procession of supporters toward the Turkish parliament, where he doubled down on his opposition to the government’s actions. “From now we will be on the streets or in the squares, marching towards power,” Özel told supporters after the incursion.

International observers have already raised alarms over the escalating crackdown on Turkey’s main opposition. On Saturday, Human Rights Watch issued a statement warning that Erdoğan’s administration is eroding Turkish democratic norms through what it described as “abusive tactics” targeting the CHP. Özel has repeatedly accused Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of waging a deliberate campaign to eliminate all political opposition. Erdoğan, 72, currently faces constitutional limits on his presidential term, which is set to end in 2028. He can only run for re-election ahead of that deadline if the government calls early elections or successfully amends the country’s constitution to remove term limits.

Turkey’s Justice Minister Akin Gürlek defended the court’s ruling earlier this week, framing the decision as a win for democratic governance. “[The ruling] reinforces our citizens’ trust in democracy,” Gürlek said. The incursion into CHP headquarters marks one of the most significant direct confrontations between the Erdoğan administration and the Turkish opposition in recent years, deepening divisions within the country’s already polarized political landscape.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered in downtown Madrid on Sunday to draw public and political attention to skyrocketing housing costs that have pushed growing numbers of Spaniards out of the competitive property and rental markets, even amid the country’s recent period of broad economic growth. The affordability crisis is most acute in major urban centers like the capital Madrid and the northeastern coastal city of Barcelona, with widespread discontent emerging as one of the biggest political vulnerabilities for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez ahead of national elections scheduled for 2027.

Industry analysts point to long-standing structural factors that have fueled the current crisis, paired with newer demand-side pressures that have sent prices soaring. Spain has a deep cultural tradition of prioritizing homeownership over renting, resulting in a chronically underdeveloped and undersupplied public rental housing sector. In recent years, rising demand from two key groups — a growing immigrant population and the booming international tourism industry — has further strained inventory and driven rental and property prices sharply upward.

Protesters carried banners and chanted coordinated slogans centered on asserting a universal right to stable, affordable housing. One widely displayed banner read, “We want neighbors, not tourists,” reflecting widespread anger over the conversion of long-term residential units into short-term vacation rentals. The demonstration included participants from across age and professional groups, all grappling with the same systemic barriers to housing access. Estrella Baudu, a 28-year-old primary school teacher who joined the rally, shared that she currently lives with her grandmother because she cannot afford independent housing. “The situation for many young people like me is quite complicated, and it is very difficult to find a rental home due to the prices and low salaries,” Baudu explained.

Sunday’s housing protest came just 24 hours after another large demonstration in Madrid that brought tens of thousands of people together to criticize Prime Minister Sánchez. That earlier protest was fueled by rising political tensions, public anger over recently surfaced corruption allegations, and broad dissatisfaction with the incumbent government’s performance across key policy areas.

For many Spaniards, home ownership has moved from a widely achievable goal to an impossible dream, as unregulated market speculation and constrained supply push prices far beyond the reach of working and middle-class households. The crisis is particularly severe in large cities and popular coastal tourism regions, where demand from foreign buyers and short-term rental platforms has outstripped local supply for years.

In response to growing public pressure, Spain’s national government approved a sweeping 7 billion euro ($8.23 billion) housing package last month. The plan allocates funding to construct tens of thousands of new public housing units over the next four years, and targets financial support to young renters and first-time homebuyers, two demographic groups hit hardest by skyrocketing housing costs. But for many protesters already facing immediate housing insecurity, the government’s long-term policy response has done little to address their urgent current struggles.

Fernando de los Santos, a 36-year-old university professor and protest participant, pushed back on the government’s claims of meaningful action. “The government may say it is taking measures, but the reality for those of us who rent is that we are receiving notices from our landlords who want to evict us,” de los Santos said. “The only thing they offer us are abusive price increases.”

Adding to the government’s political woes, a separate executive decree that would have extended a temporary national rent freeze failed to pass parliament last month. The failed legislation has left the Sánchez administration open to heightened criticism and growing short-term public discontent over its handling of the housing crisis.

This weekend’s rally is just the latest in a years-long wave of nationwide protests against high housing costs, with repeated demonstrations calling on the government to take bolder action. A core demand shared by protesters across the country is stricter regulation of the short-term tourist rental sector, which has exploded in popularity in central neighborhoods across the country. Spain welcomed a record-breaking 97 million international tourists in 2025, leading to widespread conversion of affordable long-term rental units to higher-priced short-term vacation stays.

Official statistics from the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat show that national housing costs rose nearly 13% year-on-year at the end of 2025. The Bank of Spain estimates that the country of 50 million currently faces a shortage of roughly 700,000 housing units when matching current demand to the current slow pace of new residential construction.

A tense political impasse is unfolding in Turkey’s capital Ankara this Sunday, as the bulk of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the country’s largest opposition bloc, remains locked in a standoff blocking the new court-ordered interim leadership from entering the party’s central headquarters. The standoff stems from a controversial appeals court ruling issued last Thursday, which annulled the party’s November 2023 internal congress that saw Ozgur Ozel win election to succeed long-time CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu.