ABSTRACT
The American Revolution partially compensated for the Jesuit suppression by according legal recognition to the religious liberty of Maryland Catholics. The Roman Catholic Clergy Corporation of Maryland was the group whose business meetings provided the setting in which a discussion of the future course of slaveholding by Catholic clergy began. The clergy had no wish to abolish slavery, but in such a climate, even a decision to ease out of slaveholding by selling every servant might have impeded the process of obtaining legal incorporation. Father Antonio Grassi expected that slaveholding would eventually die out completely in the United States because it was abolished in many northern states. Meanwhile, the slave trade had been banned nationwide in 1808. Unlike many Jesuits, including Peter Kenney, Antonio Grassi had some good things to say about the character of slaves who lived under their direction.
