Venerable Pierre Toussaint was born in 1766 in modern-day Haiti then brought to New York City as a slave. Pierre later secured his freedom and became a well-known hairdresser and one of the city’s prominent Catholics.

Upon coming to the United States due to political unrest in Haiti, Pierre apprenticed as a hairdresser and soon built a strong clientele among rich families in New York. After his owner died, Pierre was granted his freedom and he set out to support himself. A few years later, he married and the Toussaint’s adopted Pierre’s orphaned niece.

Pierre donated to many charities, helping those in need no matter the color of their skin. He and his wife opened their home to other orphans, helping to educate them as well as caring for those who contracted yellow fever. Pierre Toussaint was declared “Venerable” by the Church in 1996. In response to those suggesting he retire because of his wealth, Pierre replied, “I have enough for myself, but if I stop working, I have not enough for others.”

Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange is the foundress of the religious order, the Oblate Sisters of Providence.  She was born around 1789 to a well-off family in what is present-day Haiti. She, along with hundreds of others, fled that country in the late 18th century when a revolution occurred. She came to Baltimore, where a great number of Catholic, French-speaking refugees had settled. Although Elizabeth was a refugee, she was well-educated and wealthy due to money left to her by her father.

Because Maryland was a slave state and the education of slaves was outlawed, Mother Lange took charge of educating Black children in her own home and at her own expense. Archbishop James Whitfield challenged Elizabeth to establish a religious order of women for the education of Black children. In 1828, Mother Lange and two other Black women started the first Black Catholic school in the Catholic Church in America. A year later, three Black women, and Mother Lange pronounced vows to become the first religious order of women of African descent. Despite discouragement, racism, and a lack of funds, Mother Lange continued to educate children and meet the needs of the Black Catholic community in and around Baltimore.

She died on February 3, 1882. Today the Oblate Sisters of Providence number 125 sisters, 20 associates and 16 Guild members. Their motto is “Providence will Provide!”

Born in New Orleans in 1812, Venerable Henriette De Lille was a free woman of color who had a life-changing religious experience at the age of 24. In 1836, she created the Society of the Holy Family, a group of devout Christian women who provided for those suffering from poverty and sickness. Later, she founded the Sisters of the Holy Family, a religious order that opened America’s first Catholic home for the elderly. She lived a holy, prayerful, and virtuous life dedicated to the care of others whether free or enslaved, child or adult. Henriette De Lille’s dedication to Christ is handwritten in a book she had read on the Eucharist. In her words: “I believe in God. I hope in God. I Love. I want to live and die for God.”







 

Venerable Fr. Augustus Tolton, one of our patrons from last semester’s Kairos Days, is on the path to being canonized a saint of the Church. He was born into slavery in 1854, but at the age of 8, escaped the plantation with his mother and 2 siblings. He grew up in Quincy, Illinois and attended St. Peter Church and School. It was there that his Irish pastor encouraged him to consider a vocation to the priesthood. At the age of 18, Fr. Tolton was tutored by local priests in preparation for the seminary. However, because of the racial discrimination he faced in America, Fr. Tolton’s seminary education and ordination took place in Rome. In 1886, he became the first African American priest born in the United States.

 

Augustus expected to be sent to Africa, but he was sent back to his hometown and his first assignment at St. Joseph Church and School. Because of racial tension in his community, Fr. Tolton was sent to Chicago, where he developed the "national parish" of Black American Catholics, St. Monica's Catholic Church, on the South Side of Chicago

 

Fr. Tolton became known as “Good Father Gus” and is quoted as saying: "As I look back on my life, I realize that every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being redirected to something better." In 2019, Pope Francis issued the declaration that Fr. Tolton lived a life of heroic virtue thus advancing him to the title, The Venerable Father Augustus Tolton.

Sister Thea Bowman is a joyful example of contemporary sainthood. Sister Bowman was born Bertha Bowman in Mississippi in 1937. Bertha's grandfather had been a slave before the Emancipation Proclamation, but her parents were both professionals: her father was a doctor and her mother taught. Bertha was raised in a vibrantly spiritual Methodist home, and she became attracted to the life of love and service that the religious sisters in her town led. With her parents' permission, young Bertha converted to Catholicism when she was just nine.

Bertha was enrolled in a Catholic School, which deepened her appreciation for the Catholic faith and for the sisters who taught her. When she was fifteen, Bertha traveled north to Wisconsin to join the order of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in La Crosse. She attended college at Viterbo University in Wisconsin and then traveled to Washington D.C. to earn her master's degree and doctorate at the Catholic University of America. She finished her Ph.D. in 1972 and began to teach at CUA, then her alma mater of Viterbo, and Xavier University.

Sister Thea, as she became known as, worked diligently not only at education but on evangelization of Black American Catholics. The Church in the South had been wounded by the history of segregation and slavery. The social structures of sin prevented the marginalized populations from feeling welcome in the Church that they saw as a Church of white people. Sister Thea worked to create a hymnal that showcased Black spirituality and culture. She traveled across the American continent and even abroad to the Caribbean Islands and Africa to spread a ministry of joy—a ministry of proclaiming the joy of each culture's unique differences yet their unity in Christ.

Sister Thea died on March 30, 1990. Shortly before her death, Notre Dame announced her that year's recipient of the Laetare Medal. Sister Thea's cause for canonization has been opened, and the United States bishops announced their support for her canonization at their 2018 fall conference. To learn more about Sister Thea's canonization process and about her life, visit the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration page on Sister Thea.