A human link between the nation’s First Black priest and its first Black cardinal
A young woman attended the Solemn Requiem Mass for the Roman Catholic Church’s first recognizably Black priest in the United States.
Nearly 90 years later, she introduced herself to the man who would become the nation’s first Black Cardinal.
“She didn’t claim that she knew Fr. Tolton or had a long relationship with him,” recalled Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory, recently retired archbishop of Washington, D.C. “But she did tell me she remembered going to his funeral.”
That’s one of several brushes with history that helped forge for Cardinal Gregory a sense of kinship with Venerable Father Augustus Tolton (1854-97), a Missouri native who is under serious consideration for being declared a saint.
“I do feel close to Augustus Tolton, and as a priest I have drawn from his experience numerous times,” said Cardinal Gregory, himself a descendant of African slaves.
“Venerable Augustus Tolton gives us a clear example of how to remain faithful even when everything seems to be working against us,” the cardinal stated.
“He reminds us how important it is to recognize the humanity and God-given dignity of each and every person — no exceptions,” he continued. “He reminds us, the whole Church, to be in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who are mistreated because of the color of their skin or their place of origin.
“With everything going on now, that’s something very important for all of us to remember,” he said.
In spirit and truth
Cardinal Gregory discovered and pursued his own priestly calling in what was once part of Fr. Tolton’s mission field.
“I was blessed to be born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, which of course had been the home of Augustus Tolton’s ministry,” the cardinal stated.
In contrast, Fr. Tolton had taken a circuitous route to the Windy City.
He was born into a family of enslaved people in Northeastern Missouri in 1854 and baptized where St. Peter Church in Brush Creek now stands.
He escaped with his mother and siblings to Quincy, Illinois, while his father went to fight in the Civil War.
In Quincy, young Gus’s mother and others helped him learn and love his faith and overcome the seemingly insurmountable obstacles to answering his clear calling to the Priesthood.
Although no U.S. seminary would enroll him because he was Black, he was eventually accepted into the Pontifical Urban College in Rome, where the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith forms priests for missionary work around the world.
Fr. Tolton was ordained to the Holy Priesthood on Holy Saturday, April 24, 1886, in St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome.
He offered a Mass of Thanksgiving on Easter Morning in St. Peter’s Basilica on Vatican Hill.
Fr. Tolton gave of himself fully as a priest, first in Quincy, then in Chicago.
When Fr. Tolton could no longer minister in Quincy, Archbishop Patrick A. Feehan, head of the Chicago archdiocese from 1880-1902, welcomed him to minister to Black Catholics in what was then the fifth-largest city in the country.
With the archbishop’s help, Fr. Tolton established St. Monica Parish on Chicago’s Near South Side.
The priest basically worked himself to death. On July 9, 1897, he died of heatstroke while walking from the railroad station back to his rectory.
It was 105 degrees outside.
He was 43.
Twenty-seven years later, the archdiocese merged St. Monica Parish with what is now known as St. Elizabeth Parish.
St. Elizabeth was part of Cardinal Gregory’s jurisdiction when he became an auxiliary bishop of Chicago in 1983.
“Cardinal (Joseph L.) Bernardin (+1982-96) carved the archdiocese into six areas, known as vicariates,” Cardinal Gregory explained. “Mine was the South Side of the city. St. Elizabeth was one of the parishes in that region.”
As such, “I often had the opportunity to visit this parish that had once been Augustus Tolton’s community,” he recalled.
That’s where he met the woman who had attended Fr. Tolton’s funeral and assisted him with her prayers.
“She was well up in age,” Cardinal Gregory noted. “But she was a young woman when she attended the funeral, and she remembered.”
That wasn’t Cardinal Gregory’s only tie to Fr. Tolton.
His first appointment as a newly ordained priest in 1973 was to be associate pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Glenview, Illinois.
One of his parishioners there was a relative of Sister Caroline Hemesath SSF, a Sister of St. Francis of Dubuque, Iowa, author of From Slave to Priest, the first comprehensive biography of Fr. Tolton.
“So, I got a firsthand introduction to the book that her cousin had written and published the year I was ordained a priest,” said Cardinal Gregory.
Years later, while serving as bishop of Belleville, Illinois, Cardinal Gregory preached the homily at a Mass on July 13, 1997, in St. Peter Church in Quincy, to mark the 100th anniversary of Fr. Tolton’s death.
“We have all been chosen by God in Christ to be God’s very own adopted children,” the future cardinal proclaimed that day. “Fr. Tolton believed that truth. He spent his all-too-brief priestly ministry in service to that truth. He gave himself completely to that fact.”
The future cardinal noted that a full century after Fr. Tolton’s passing from this life, “many of the attitudes that he found so distressing still distress our world, as well.”
“We have made significant progress, to be sure, but we have not yet overcome the barriers that still divide the world into Black and White, rich and poor, immigrant and resident, haves and have-nots,” he stated.
He acknowledged that racism continues to desecrate the Church that Christ himself established to be his very presence in the world.
“Let all of us who bear the proud name Catholic replenish our acceptance of the Church’s commitment to racial harmony, to interracial justice, and our proud devotion to the heroes and heroines of our faith who stand as giants in the work of holiness and justice,” the future cardinal exhorted.
Man on a mission
In a recent interview, Cardinal Gregory marveled at Fr. Tolton’s extraordinary patience, fidelity and perseverance.
“He faced some incredible obstacles to becoming a priest and to serving as a priest once he was ordained,” the cardinal noted. “But he did also run into some great people who helped him.”
Among those who helped were Father Peter McGirr, who was pastor of St. Peter Parish in Quincy from 1863-93. Himself a refugee of the potato famine in Ireland, Fr. McGirr stood up to some of his parishioners and saw to it that young Gus received a good Catholic education.
Another ally was Cardinal Giovanni Simeoni, prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Propagation of the Faith, who saw Fr. Tolton’s potential to be something no one else had been.
“Throughout his time in the seminary, Fr. Tolton thought he would be sent as a priest to minister in Africa,” Cardinal Gregory noted. “That tells you that there were other Black priests who were ordained in Rome and were sent to Africa.
“But Cardinal Simeoni decided that Augustus should go back to the United States and be a missionary to his own people,” said Cardinal Gregory.
Cardinal Simeoni’s rationale was simple: “America has been called the most enlightened nation; we will see if it deserves that honor. If America has never seen a Black priest, it has to see one now.”
Fr. Tolton cried upon receiving the news, likely due to some of the harsh treatment he had received while growing up Black in the United States.
The Civil War had ended over 20 years previously, but the rightful place of Black people in American society was still being debated.
“There were structures in place that were intended to isolate African Americans and people of color,” Cardinal Gregory noted.
Upon arriving back in Quincy, Fr. Tolton immediately put his gifts to work for God and his people.
“Not only was he the first African American priest, but he was a very effective preacher, a very compassionate minister,” said Cardinal Gregory.
“Which got him into some trouble down in Quincy and maybe later in Chicago,” the cardinal continued. “Because he would be serving not just the African American community, but there would be White people who’d want to go to Confession with him.
“That was not to the liking of some of the other priests,” he said. “There was some jealousy.”
Hence, Fr. Tolton’s repeated requests to be allowed to move to another diocese.
And hence, his arrival in Chicago in 1889.
Fr. Tolton did make it clear that upon his death, he wanted to be buried back in Quincy, where he first fell in love with the Lord.
Dreams yet unfulfilled
The Chicago archdiocese opened a sainthood cause for Fr. Tolton in 2011. Reams of information were gathered, organized and sent to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in Vatican City.
Following a thorough review by historians and theologians of the dicastery, Pope Francis, now deceased, in 2019 declared that Fr. Tolton had conducted his life with heroic virtue, and bestowed on him the title Venerable.
Cardinal Gregory treasures the memory of the woman who served as a link between the nation’s first recognizably Black Roman Catholic priest and the nation’s first Black Cardinal.
“When the process for Fr. Tolton’s cause for canonization began 17 years ago, I was blessed to be able to share what she told me when I was invited to give testimony,” he said.
Cardinal Gregory was quick to praise the work of retired Auxiliary Bishop Joseph N. Perry of Chicago, co-postulator of Fr. Tolton’s sainthood cause, who has visited the Jefferson City diocese several times.
“Bishop Perry has been a prince in promoting this cause,” said Cardinal Gregory. “And with God’s help, the cause is moving along.”
The Cardinal said the circumstances that separate the current age from that of Fr. Tolton are “vast but strangely similar in many respects.”
“Certainly, the world of slavery into which he was born has passed, but not some of the life restrictions that are the legacy of slavery,” he stated.
That’s why now is such an important time to share Fr. Tolton’s story and the lessons it contains while continuing to work toward justice and righteousness, said Cardinal Gregory.
“His testimony is a needed example to a world that profoundly needs not to lose hope as we make every effort to bring about justice in our time in Catholic history,” he said.
Fr. Tolton’s life remains a source of encouragement for not only African Americans but for all Catholics.
“His dedication to his vocation, his love of Christ and the Church, were always in focus, even in the face of intense systemic, societal and ecclesial racism,” Cardinal Gregory insisted.
“Despite how he felt or how cruelly he was treated, Augustus renewed his commitment each day and was present for those who needed him and his ministry,” he stated.
“Augustus kept his eyes and his heart on what he believed the Lord was calling him to do,” said Cardinal Gregory. “He believed in God’s purpose for his life and that God would make that purpose possible, despite anything Augustus had to suffer.”
