Celebrating Black Catholic History 1. Sr. Thea Bowman Sr. Thea

Celebrating Black Catholic History

1. Sr. Thea Bowman

Sr. Thea Bowman. The U.S. bishops endorsed the sainthood cause of Sister Thea Bowman on Nov. 14, 2018, during their fall assembly in Baltimore. The granddaughter of slaves, she was the only African-American member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and the first black woman to address the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She was born on December 29, 1937 in Mississippi, reared as a Protestant until, at age nine, she asked her parents if she could become a Catholic.

Sister Thea Bowman shared the message of God’s love through a teaching career and later, the bishop of Jackson, Mississippi, invited her to become the consultant for intercultural awareness. Sister Thea gave presentations across the country that encouraged people to communicate so that they could understand other cultures and races.

In 1984, Sister Thea was diagnosed with breast cancer. She prayed “to live until I die.” Her prayer was answered—Sister Thea continued her gatherings seated in a wheelchair. In 1989, the U.S. bishops invited her to be a key speaker at their conference on Black Catholics.

“May Sister Thea’s life and legacy compel us to walk together, to pray together, and to remain together as missionary disciples ushering in the new evangelization for the Church we love.”

2. The Josephites

For over 140 years the Josephites have been in the mission of serving the African American community. It began with a determined man named Cardinal Vaughn. In 1866, after years of fund- raising, he opened a school named St. Joseph College of the Sacred Heart located in Mill Hill, England. Cardinal Vaughn’s greatest desire was to send missionaries into all parts of the world. In May 1870, he petitioned the pope for a mission field. The choice was the United States.

For years the archbishop of Baltimore, Martin John Spalding, had been appealing to Rome for help in ministering to the thousands recently released from slavery. In 1871, Pius IX handed down the Negro Oath, which would shape the modern-day Josephites.

In Cardinal Vaughn’s time, every missionary assigned to this duty was to sign this oath, which stated, among other things, that the priest would “vow and solemnly declare that I will make myself the father and servant of the Negroes; nor shall I ever take up any other work which might cause me to abandon, or in any way neglect the special care of the Negroes. So help me God and these His Holy Gospels.”

With the oath in hand the four missionaries and Cardinal Vaughn set off for Baltimore. Here Cardinal Vaughn consecrated the mission to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and named his missionaries the “Josephites,” because St. Joseph was honored as the “first missionary.” Together Cardinal Vaughn and the priests established a seminary, many parishes, schools and the beginnings of an interracial brotherhood. And so it continued. Missionaries would study at the college in Mill Hill in England and then travel to America for their foreign mission. However, overseeing an international organization was difficult. So in 1893, Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore offered to accept the Josephites as an independent organization and Cardinal Vaughn gave his consent.

During this pivotal time in the Josephites’ history, the Negro Oath continued to be their solid foundation. Father John Slattery became the first Superior General of the new American Josephites and set the direction of the newly independent society.

What began as a mission to help the newly freed slaves in America, evolved into the broader task of assisting all of the Black community. The Josephites continue in the tradition of Cardinal Vaughn and by the commission of Pope Pius IX, as a society dedicated solely to the service of the African American community.

3. St. Augustine Church of New Orleans

St. Augustine Catholic Church of New Orleans was founded in 1841 under the episcopacy of Bishop Antoine Blanc, who later served as New Orleans’ first Archbishop. Established by free people of color, who also bought pews for slaves, this is the oldest African-American Catholic parish in the nation. It was one of the first 26 sites designated on the state’s Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

The property on which St. Augustine stands was once part of the Claude Tremé plantation. It is now one of two Catholic parishes in the Faubourg Tremé. The church is located on Saint Claude Avenue at Governor Nicholls Street, a few blocks from North Rampart Street and the French Quarter. It was designed by the French architect J. N. B. de Pouilly, who worked on the expansion and renovation of the more famous St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square.

When free people of color organized in the 1830s and received permission from Bishop Antoine Blanc to build a church, the Ursuline Sisters donated the property, on the condition that the church be named St. Augustine, after one of their patron saints, Augustine of Hippo. The church was dedicated on October 9, 1842. At a time when there were pew fees, free people of color paid for extra pews so that enslaved blacks could also attend.

A few months before the October 9, 1842 dedication of St. Augustine Church, the people of color began to purchase pews for their families to sit. Upon hearing of this, white people in the area started a campaign to buy more pews than the African-American parishioners. Thus, “The War of the Pews” began and was ultimately won by the free people of color who bought three pews to every one purchased by whites. In an unprecedented social, political and religious move, the African-American members also bought all the pews of both side aisles. They gave those pews to the slaves as their exclusive place of worship, a first in the history of slavery in the United States. This mix of the pews resulted in the most integrated congregation in the entire country: one large row of free people of color, one large row of whites with a smattering of ethnics, and two outer aisles of slaves.

The Tremé has traditionally been an African-American neighborhood, although it has included a multicultural community. Along with the neighboring Catholic parish of St. Peter Claver, the parish is known in New Orleans for its association with the black Catholic community. The church hosts the annual Jazz Mass, held in conjunction with the Satchmo Festival, which honors Louis Armstrong’s birthday. Famous parishioners have included civil rights activists, musicians and other leaders including Homer Plessy (1862–1925), civil rights activist (Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case) and Sidney Bechet (1897–1959), jazz clarinetist, soprano saxophonist and composer.

Due to the substantial property losses in the city after Hurricane Katrina and a decline in population, the Diocese decided to close St. Augustine Church, despite the fact that it had been providing extensive community support. Parishioners asked hurricane relief volunteers for help in a protest. They barricaded themselves in the church’s rectory to demonstrate against the closure. After two weeks, parishioners and church officials agreed on a compromise. The church was allowed to remain open after presenting a plan of action to address critical areas, including congregational growth, fund raising, and management improvements. The Diocese would review its status after 18 months. A documentary film about the protest entitled Shake the Devil Off increased publicity for the church’s efforts to survive. In May 2008 St. Augustine Church received a $75,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express to aid in needed renovations to the historic parish hall, a center of community services. Enhanced use of the parish hall for community services was integral to the church’s plans for the future. In March 2009, St. Augustine Church announced that due to its progress, the Diocese had decided it would not be closed and had taken the church off probation.