Black Catholic Spirituality & History
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Black Catholic Spirituality & History Resources
Who Will Be the First Black Catholic Saint?
Augustus Tolton, a former slave, was the first Catholic priest in the United States publicly known to be black. He studied for the priesthood in Rome and was ordained in 1886 at 31. He returned to the U.S. soon afterward and served the black community mostly in Chicago.
Fr. Augustus Tolton - "From slave to Catholic priest"Pierre Toussaint was born in modern-day Haiti and brought to New York City as a slave. Pierre died a free man, a renowned hairdresser, and one of New York City’s most well-known Catholics.
Venerable Pierre ToussaintSr. Thea Bowman, FSPA, devoted her life to sharing her rich African American Catholic heritage and spirituality in song, prayer, teaching, and preaching. Thea Bowman, gifted with a brilliant mind, beautiful voice, and a dynamic personality, shared the message of God's love through teaching. Watch Sr. Thea's June 1989 address to the U.S. Catholic Bishops on Black Catholic Spirituality.
Sr. Thea's Address to U.S. BishopsHenriette Díaz DeLille, SSF was a Louisiana Creole of color and Catholic religious sister from New Orleans. She founded the Sisters of the Holy Family in 1836 and served as their first Mother Superior. The sisters are the second-oldest surviving congregation of African-American religious.
Venerable Henriette DelilleMary Elizabeth Lange was an educator and founder of both the oldest Catholic school for African Americans and the first order of African American nuns in the United States, the Oblate Sisters of Providence.
The Life And Legacy of Mother Mary LangeJulia Greeley, Denver’s Angel of Charity, was born into slavery, near Hannibal, Missouri, sometime between 1833 and 1848. While she was still a young child, a cruel slave master, in the course of beating her mother, caught Julia’s right eye with his whip and destroyed it. Freed by Missouri’s Emancipation Act in 1865, Julia subsequently earned her keep by serving white families in Missouri, Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico—mostly in the Denver area. Julia spent whatever she did not need for herself assisting poor families in her neighborhood. When her own resources were inadequate, she begged for food, fuel, and clothing. One writer later called her a “one-person St. Vincent de Paul Society.” To avoid embarrassing the people she helped, Julia did most of her charitable work under cover of night through dark alleys.
Julia Greely, the American slave who could be a saint