Clergy deliver documents about black Catholic movement to Notre Dame

Friday, Nov. 11, 2016

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (CNS) — A delegation of black Catholic priests paid a visit to the University of Notre Dame’s Theodore Hesburgh Library in South Bend to entrust the archives there with historical documents about African-American Catholic priests, sisters, brothers, deacons, seminarians and laypeople.

The group visited the archives Oct. 24 in advance of Black Catholic History Month in November. The observance was established in 1990 by the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus.

Members of the delegation were Father Kenneth Taylor, a priest of the Indianapolis archdiocese, who is president of National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus; Precious Blood Father Clarence Williams, caucus vice president and archivist; Father Theodore Parker, a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit; and Deacon Melvin Tardy, an academic adviser at Notre Dame.

The materials they delivered will be preserved in the library’s archives and be available for study.

The three priests were nostalgic about bringing the documentation to Notre Dame because of their personal histories with the university.

“It is hard to believe that we were here as seminarians in 1970, and began the National Black Catholic Seminarians Association. And now we return almost 50 years later as priests. Things have come full circle,” said Father Parker. He had served on the coordinating committee of the seminarians association.

The group’s first meeting at Notre Dame drew 70 black seminarians from across the country. They were the guests of the National Black Sisters Conference, which had formed two years earlier.

Fr. Taylor, who also was present in 1970, called it amazing to see the return of the historical documents to a place that was instrumental in building the black Catholic movement in its infancy.

“November as Black Catholic History Month is a project of the black Catholic clergy, so this is a perfect time to accept the invitation to place our chronicle with the Notre Dame archives on the American Catholic Heritage,” he said.

The Notre Dame visit was one step toward a greater appreciation of the black Catholic movement to be explored in 2018.

Fr. Williams, who is chairman of the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus’ 50th anniversary committee, said the group was “putting things in place” as the anniversary approaches. The anniversary will mark the beginning of the black Catholic movement that began “with the clergy leading it,” he added.