The COVID-19 pandemic put a slowdown on the causes of men and women who are poised to become the United States\u2019 first African American saints and have much to offer the universal Church about faithfully following Jesus Christ. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Peter Jesserer Smith<\/a>Features<\/a>May 27, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thirty-three years after Venerable Henriette DeLille\u2019s cause was opened, an alleged miracle is now in the hands of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints at the Vatican, putting this holy heroine of New Orleans close to becoming the first African American Catholic raised to the altars of the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re just waiting, praying, hoping and telling everybody to pray,\u201d Sister of the Holy Family Doris Goudeaux, the head of the commission working on Venerable Henriette\u2019s cause, told the Register. A previous alleged miracle lacked enough supporting documentation, but Sister Doris said she hoped this second alleged miracle would convince the Vatican to approve Henriette\u2019s beatification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right now, the causes of six African American Catholic men and women, or the \u201cSaintly Six,\u201d as they are commonly known among Black Catholics, are moving forward in various stages. None have been declared \u201cBlessed\u201d yet \u2014 the penultimate stage before canonization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Venerable Henriette DeLille<\/a> (1813-1862) grew up in a New Orleans society where women of African descent were groomed and exploited for sexual companionship (in a system called placage<\/em>) to high-status European American men. <\/em>DeLille, who appears to have had two children as a teenager through placage<\/em>, would learn more about the teachings of her Catholic faith and decisively commit herself to follow Jesus Christ at age 23. She then worked fiercely to dismantle placage <\/em>and promote the sacrament of matrimony, witnessing many marriages in the face of opposition from people within society and the Church. She found an ally in the Vatican, which approved her religious order, today\u2019s Sisters of the Holy Family, that dedicated itself to care for the sick, the poor, and those without education, particularly Black and Creole children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down progress, particularly at the Vatican, it has allowed the \u201cSaintly Six\u201d to achieve broader veneration among Catholics in the U.S. and even overseas, with many more faithful discovering their part of the Church\u2019s story and relevance for the Church today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe last line in her obituary is that \u2018for the love of Jesus Christ, she made herself the humble servant of slaves,\u2019\u201d Sister Doris said. \u201cShe gave herself in service right to the end, out of love, to the slaves and the sick, to the orphan and the aged, to the forgotten and to the despised. That\u2019s what her life was about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The life of Venerable Father Augustus Tolton<\/a> (1854-1897) can provide inspiration both to Black Catholic men discerning or persevering in their vocation to the priesthood, and to all Catholic priests who may at times feel isolated or marginalized in their vocation by their brother priests and from Church leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Augustus had the support of the Vatican, which ordained him a priest with a mandate to return to the U.S. as a missionary, he faced fierce opposition and resentment from Church leaders in the U.S. who had fought racial equality in defiance of papal teaching. Eventually, Venerable Augustus was driven out from his parish in Quincy, Illinois, by a white Catholic priest and the local bishop, who were furious that both African American and European American Catholics had freely gathered to worship and for fellowship in Father Tolton\u2019s church and demanded segregation. He then went to serve in the Archdiocese of Chicago, establishing a new parish for Black Catholics and ministering to all from 1889 until 1897, when he died from heat exhaustion at the age of 42.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe had very few people to lean on,\u201d said Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry of Chicago, the postulator of the cause. Venerable Augustus was at the time the nation\u2019s only known Catholic priest who was Black and had only a small handful of U.S. priests and nuns as allies, including St. Katharine Drexel. But Bishop Perry believes Father Tolton\u2019s example can provide strength and encouragement<\/a> to Catholics who feel scandalized or discouraged by the poor example of fellow Catholics and leaders in the Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe could have said No. He could have left the Church. He could have become an alcoholic. He could have done a lot of things,\u201d Bishop Perry said. \u201cBut he hung in there, and he absolved his past. \u2026 He seems to have forgiven all of that by asking his mother to make sure upon his death that he would be buried in Quincy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bishop Perry said that COVID interrupted many planned events for the Tolton cause, but the guild is looking forward in 2021 to reactivating pilgrimages to Tolton-related sites in Quincy and Brush Creek, Missouri, where he was born under slavery, as well as to the places where he ministered in Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are right now praying for a miracle to see Venerable Augustus Tolton declared \u201cBlessed.\u201d The bishop said they have received requests for his intercession and reports of favors from around the world, including from Russia, the Philippines and Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll kinds of people are really touched by his story,\u201d the bishop said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Servant of God <\/a>Julia Greeley<\/a> (1833\/48?-1918), Denver\u2019s \u201cAngel of Charity\u201d and \u201cApostle of the Sacred Heart,\u201d has a cause for sainthood making progress, as well. Like Venerable Augustus Tolton, Greeley also suffered under the violence of slavery in Missouri and gained her freedom during the U.S. Civil War. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Greeley went West, settling in Denver. She led an intensely Eucharistic life and performed works of charity, although the prevalence of racism meant that sometimes she had to carry out her mission of mercy to poor white families under the cover of darkness. When she died, a constant stream of mourners came to pay their last respects as her body lay in state for five hours in her parish church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Greeley\u2019s remains now rest in the Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints recently issued a decree<\/a> approving the validity of the investigation into Greeley\u2019s life and the devotion to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Greeley was known in the West as a one-woman St. Vincent de Paul Society, over in New York, Venerable Pierre Touissant (1766-1853) is credited as the de facto<\/em> founder of the city\u2019s Catholic Charities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Toussaint was also born under slavery in Haiti, but he gained his freedom in 1807 in New York, taking his last name in honor of the devout Catholic and military hero of the Haitian Revolution, Touissant L\u2019Ouverture, whose leadership was key to defeating the French Empire and ending slavery in Haiti. Venerable Pierre sought to use his freedom to liberate men and women from sin, oppression and poverty. As a successful hairdresser, Venerable Pierre was widely known for his integrity among New York\u2019s high society. Together with his wife, Juliette, Touissant fostered children; the couple dedicated their income to support orphans, refugees and migrants and helped the unemployed find work. They also contributed to the building of the old St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral. <\/p>\n\n\n\n His cause is now waiting on a miracle it can submit for approval by Rome. In New York, Toussaint\u2019s legacy received greater recognition with the co-naming of Church Avenue as Pierre Toussaint Boulevard, thanks to the efforts of the Brooklyn chapter of the Toussaint guild and the city council. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, in Baltimore, work is being done to answer several historical clarifications requested by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on the positio<\/em> for Servant of God Mother Mary Lange<\/a> (1784-1882), who founded in Baltimore the first congregation of Black Catholic religious sisters, the Oblate Sisters of Providence, and became the first Black Catholic mother superior of a religious congregation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The positio<\/em> explains why the Servant of God should be recognized for her heroic Christian virtues and be declared Venerable. Mother Lange was highly regarded for her commitment to educating Black children and women, establishing homes to care for widows and orphans, and caring for the city when it was struck by cholera. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sharon Knecht, the archivist for the Oblate Sisters of Providence and external coordinator for the cause, said the guild is hopeful the historical clarifications requested by Rome will allow the cause to move to the next step of theological examination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s all in God\u2019s time,\u201d Knecht said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the meantime, the guild continues to gather reports of prayers answered and healings credited to Mother Lange\u2019s intercession. And the archdiocese is nearing completion of the Mother Mary Lange Catholic School, the city of Baltimore\u2019s first new Catholic school in 60 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gloria Purvis, a leading Black Catholic voice and host of the Gloria Purvis Podcast<\/em><\/a>, told the Register that she is a direct beneficiary of Mother Mary\u2019s heroic faith, along with thousands of other Black children who were educated by the Oblate Sisters of Providence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy first experience of religious sisters ever was a Black woman in the habit,\u201d Purvis said, adding that Mother Mary, who emigrated to the U.S. from Cuba, had stopped through Purvis\u2019 hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, on her way to Baltimore, where she would found her religious order and open St. Frances Academy, a Catholic school dedicated to the education of Black youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe recognized the need for education for African American children,\u201d Purvis said. \u201cThrough her steadfast faith, many thousands of Black children and I have benefited.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Purvis wrote about Mother Mary Lange in Black Catholics on the Road to Sainthood <\/em>(Our Sunday Visitor)<\/a>, a brief introduction to the lives of these heroic Black men and women, which she hopes is the first of many books. Purvis explained that two key ways to promote greater awareness about the \u201cSaintly Six\u201d is to have prayers for their eventual canonization prayed for at Mass and also to teach about them in Catholic schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The newest cause of the \u201cSaintly Six\u201d is Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman<\/a> (1937-1990), a Catholic intellectual and educator with a missionary heart, who was both an advocate for Black culture and the strengths the Black Christian spiritual tradition has to offer the Church. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sister Thea, who grew up in the final throes of the Jim Crow era\u2019s anti-Black violence and segregation, was also a tireless advocate for the beauty and dignity of Black lives and for racial reconciliation. She earned a Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America with a doctoral thesis on St. Thomas More, was a co-founder of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies<\/a> (IBCS) at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, and composed songs for and helped develop Lead Me, Guide Me<\/em>, a Catholic hymnal in the African American spiritual tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHeroes of Holiness <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Missionary Dynamism <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n