Brave and Free · Week 2 · Grades 9–12
Guided Notes: St. Josephine Bakhita
- Name
- Date
- Class
Follow along as your teacher presents. Fill in each section when its slide is on the screen.
Property with no name
Bakhita was born around 1869 in blank 1, in western Sudan. In the 1870s the region was raided by slave traders, who sold captives in the markets of El Obeid and Khartoum.
She was kidnapped as a young child. The trauma erased the memory of her birth name, and her captors called her Bakhita, “fortunate.” She was sold several times over about twelve years. She was beaten, and one blank 2 had her skin deliberately scarred. She bore those marks for life.
What we know comes largely from her own account, which she dictated to another sister years later in blank 3.
A life in dates
Write what happened at each point.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| c. 1869 | Write your answer |
| c. 1877 | Write your answer |
| 1883 | Write your answer |
| 1885 | Write your answer |
| 1889 | Write your answer |
| 1890 | Write your answer |
| 1896 | Write your answer |
| 1947 | Write your answer |
Free to choose
In Italy, Bakhita cared for the blank 4’ daughter. While the mother traveled, the two lodged with the Canossian Sisters in Venice. There Bakhita was taught the Christian faith and recognized the God she had sensed while looking at the stars.
When Mrs. Michieli returned to take her back to Africa, Bakhita refused. The dispute went to court. On November 29, 1889, the court ruled that Italian law did not recognize blank 5, so she had never legally been anyone’s property.
She asked for blank 6 and then entered the Canossian Sisters. For decades in Schio she was cook, sacristan and doorkeeper, known for her gentleness and her smile.
Apply it
The court said Bakhita had never legally been property. Which principle of Catholic teaching goes further than that ruling? Circle one.
- A Each nation may decide for itself who counts as free
- B Dignity comes from God, so no law can grant or remove it
- C Freedom is owed to people once they are baptized
- D Slavery is wrong only where owners are cruel
Why is that the right answer?
A different kind of master
Bakhita had known only masters who owned her. In Venice she learned of a blank 7 above every master, one who had created her, knew her and loved her. She called him by the dialect word for master, “Paron.”
In 2007 Pope Benedict XVI opened his encyclical on hope, blank 8, with her story. He presents her as someone redeemed by hope: no longer a slave, but a free child of God who knew she was loved and awaited.
She also forgave. She spoke without hatred of those who had kidnapped and hurt her, and she saw God’s hand in the road that had led her to faith.
Today her feast, February 8, is the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against blank 9.
Apply it
A stranger online offers a 16-year-old a modeling job abroad, asks for secrecy and wants to hold her passport. What does Bakhita’s story suggest? Circle one.
- A It is safe if the stranger seems kind and generous
- B It is fine as long as her friends go along too
- C Trafficking ended long ago, so there is no real risk
- D Control and secrecy are warning signs; tell a trusted adult
Why is that the right answer?
Take a side
Bakhita said she was grateful even toward her kidnappers, because the road they forced her down led her to Christ. Can a victim give thanks like this without excusing the evil that was done?
My side: ☐ Yes, gratitude and justice can stand together ☐ No, this kind of gratitude risks excusing evil
- She forgave her captors, yet she also refused to return to slavery and went to court.
- The Church teaches that God can draw good from evil without ever willing the evil.
- Could her words be misused to tell other victims to stay silent or simply be thankful?
- Is there a difference between a survivor saying this about herself and someone else saying it about her?
- Does forgiveness require that the wrongdoer be held accountable, or can the two be separate?
My strongest reason, with evidence from the slides:
The best argument for the other side, and my response:
Persons, not products
Slavery is the extreme case of treating a person as a product. Where do apps, feeds, AI tools or online habits tempt us to treat people, including ourselves, as products to be used, rated or sold?
Think: my idea before we talk
Sentence starters: “One place I see people treated as products is ...”“I notice I treat myself as a product when ...”“Being made in God’s image would change this by ...”“The comparison to slavery is fair or unfair because ...”
Pair: something my partner said
Let us pray
Lord God, you made every human being in your image and likeness.
Break the chains of all who are trafficked and enslaved today, and heal their wounds.
Give us hope that does not depend on our circumstances, and hearts free enough to forgive.
St. Josephine Bakhita, pray for us.
Amen.
My own prayer or intention:
Well done
A child whose name was taken is now honored by name across the world. Her feast, February 8, is a day of prayer against human trafficking.
One thing I learned today:
One question I still have:
How could the example of St. Josephine Bakhita shape the way I live, online and offline?
Challenge: This week, learn three warning signs of human trafficking from a trusted source such as the USCCB, and share them with one person. Then unfollow or mute one account that treats people as objects.