Learning About Servant of God Augustus Tolton

Friday, Feb. 10, 2017

As usual, I’m a day late. In this case, it was for the National Day of Prayer for the African-American Family, which was Feb. 6, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

I am, however, at least at the beginning in the right month: February is Black History Month in the United States, and not coincidently my Facebook feed contains several links to information about Black Catholics.

I suspect more than a few people are going to stop reading right about this point. After all, the readership of this paper is decidedly not African-American, and what can I possibly say that’s relevant on this topic?

Quite honestly, I couldn’t say much. At least, I couldn’t before I did a bit of research, because although I can give the broad outlines of contributions by people like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and Thurgood Marshall, and have read books by Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and Walter Mosley, and enjoyed the artistry of Louis Armstrong and Denzel Washington and so many others, I’m forced to say that while I’m aware of some of the many contributions that Blacks in general have made to American society, the only outstanding Black American Catholics I could name would be Pierre Toussaint and Father Augustus Tolton.

As long as I’m being honest, I’ll also admit the only reason I know about those two is because they are on the path to sainthood. Servant of God Augustus Tolton is recognized at the nation’s first African-American priest, while Venerable Pierre Toussaint is honored for his charitable work in New York City. Both men were born into slavery, both suffered racism and discrimination – Fr. Tolton couldn’t enter a seminary in America, so he studied in Rome, but after he returned to the United States a bishop forbade white people to attend his church; and Toussaint, who founded one of New York City’s first orphanages, was forbidden because of his race from entering Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.   

As is usual when my ignorance about a matter is exposed, I’d much rather try to hide it that acknowledge it. However, this year I decided to expand my horizons, and I had the perfect place to start. Every February for the past couple of years, Susan Northway, the diocesan director of religious education, has been urging me to do a column about the graphic novel based on his life. (For those of you who like my mother [sorry, Mom!] don’t know what a graphic novel is, think comic book, but with more text.) 

I’ve been skeptical, which is one reason it took me so long to follow Susan’s suggestion. This weekend, though, I took home Fr. Augustus Tolton, The First Recognized Black Catholic Priest in America, by Corinna Laughlin and Maria Laughlin. An in-depth biography it’s not, (according to the historical note at the back of the novel, “The full biography of Father Augustus Tolton remains to be written”) but for a quick read and basic information, it’s very good. I’d particularly recommend it for tweens and teenagers, or anyone else with an interest but a short attention span. It touches, but doesn’t dwell on, the deprivations caused by slavery and the racism that followed the Civil War. It describes those priests who helped Fr. Tolton, but also mentions those who opposed him in his ministry.

For religious education teachers looking for classroom resources that might be appropriate for Black History Month, Susan has a classroom set of the graphic novels available for checkout. For those who  might be interested, information about other prominent African-American Catholics is available at http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/cultural-diversity/african-american/resources/on-the-road-to-sainthood-leaders-of-african-descent.cfm or https://www.osv.com/OSVNewsweekly/Article/TabId/535/ArtMID/13567/ArticleID/21602/Celebrating-the-contributions-of-black-Catholics.aspx.