Building the Church in the Black community
By Lou Baldwin
Special to the CS&T
The enlarged print of a 114-year-old, formal photograph was a meeting
focal point.
In it, tiers of well-dressed African-American men lined the church steps,
with a few white priests interspersed in the front row and one African-American
priest in the center.
That priest was Father Augustine Tolton, generally recognized as America’s
first African-American priest. The photo’s caption said: “Colored
Catholic Congress, Philadelphia, Penn., 1892.”
As it happened, that was the third congress of Black Catholics. It was
held at Philadelphia’s first African-American Catholic Church, St.
Peter Claver, which is now the St. Peter Claver Center for Evangelization.
And as also happened — but much more recently — the St. Peter
Claver Center was the venue for a meeting of representatives from the
city’s black Catholic community this Oct. 7, to discuss their participation
in the 10th national Black Catholic Congress next year in Buffalo, N.Y.
The national congress will be held July 12-15, 2007.
The first such congress was held in Washington, D.C., in 1890, and annual
congresses continued in various cities until 1893.
Then a century passed. In fact, although many meetings of Black Catholic
groups were held, another formal congress was not called until 1987, once
more for Washington.
Mostly, the earlier congresses have discussed crucial issues of black
evangelization and discrimination against blacks, both in the community-at-large
and in the American Church.
But Congress 10, as it is being called, has a strikingly spiritual theme:
“Christ is with us: Celebrating the gifts of the sacraments!”
“We will challenge you to delve deeply into the mysteries of our
faith,” said Valarie Washington, executive director of the National
Black Catholic Congress. “This is a time for the people of God to
live out their royal calling, and Congress 10 will help us do that.”
The goal of the congress, she said, “is to make the Trinity alive
in your hearts, burning with a more fervent zeal than you already have,
enabling you to do good works and create within you a desire to be a good
witness as you live out your sacramental life.”
When Father Tolton attended that third Congress in Philadelphia, he was
the first openly black priest in America. Born in slavery, he studied
and was ordained in Europe because no American seminaries of his era accepted
African American candidates.
He was not the first American priest of African-American blood. James,
Patrick and Alexander Healy were the sons of an Irishman immigrant to
Georgia and his wife, a former mulatto slave. Sent North by their protective
father, they, too, received their seminary training in Europe, but because
of their mixed heritage, they generally passed as white. James, ordained
the year Father Tolton was born, later became bishop of Portland Maine.
Alexander became rector of Boston’s Cathedral, and Patrick became
president of Georgetown University — at a time, ironically, when
the school did not accept black students.
The St. Peter Claver Evangelization Center meeting was attended by three
members of Philadelphia’s growing contingent of Black clergy: Father
Stephen Thorne, director of the archdiocesan Office for Black Catholics;
Msgr. Federico Britto, pastor of St. Cyprian Parish, and Father Rayford
Emmons, ordained in 1974 as Philadelphia’s first archdiocesan black
Catholic priest.
Father Thorne, ordained in 1998, told the gathering that his own decision
to enter the seminary was influenced by his attendance at previous congresses,
beginning in 1987.
He said Congress 10 is meant to affirm what it means to be Catholic: “That’s
very important where we are in history — not just to be proud of
our culture but what it means to be Catholic. We need to be enriched by
our faith, our sacraments.”
“Philadelphia’s Black Catholic community is growing, and the
congress will be a chance for those who attend to become reinvigorated
and even stronger in reaching out to those who don’t know Jesus
Christ,” he said.
Blessed Sacrament Sister Mary Roger Thibodeaux, also in attendance, is
an old hand at evangelization in the African American community. She is
the longtime head of the Bensalem-based S.B.S. Center for Evangelization.
“Focusing on the sacraments is really doing the ministry of our
number-one mission — evangelization,” she said, quoting St.
Katharine Drexel, her congregation’s foundress. “The greatest
work we can do is bring others to God.”
For further information about National Black Catholic Congress 10 call
(215)-735-3164 or check out www.nbccongress.org
Lou Baldwin is a member of St. Leo Parish and a freelance writer.