Black Catholics Hope for Saint of Their Own

There’s been a flurry of saintly activity at the Vatican recently. Pope John Paul II has expressed a desire to elevate more modern role models to the level of veneration, beatification or sainthood, and the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of the Saints has been working feverishly to comply.

This is good news for U.S. Catholics, who last month heard the pope confirm a second healing miracle for Katharine Drexel, a Philadelphia heiress-turned-nun who died in 1955 and became a “blessed” in 1988 after confirmation of a first miracle. When canonized, possibly in the fall, Drexel will become the second American-born saint after Elizabeth Ann Seton. Two foreign-born Americans also have been canonized: Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini and John Neumann.

Sister Ann Rehrauer, associate director of the office of liturgy at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the formal process toward sainthood has begun for at least 17 more Americans.

Black Catholics, who make up 2 million of the country’s 62 million Roman Catholics, would like to see one of their own achieve sainthood. Just starting the process “affirms that there are Catholic men and women in this country who are universally recognized as very holy people coming out of African origins,” said Msgr. Russell L. Dillard, pastor of St. Augustine Catholic Church, Washington’s oldest black parish.

The person most likely to be named the first black U.S. saint is Pierre Toussaint, a 19th century Haitian hairdresser and philanthropist who helped house and educate poor people in New York City.

Toussaint, the only black and the only layman buried at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, was made a “venerable” four years ago by John Paul. If one miracle is attributed to him, he will become beatified; a second miracle would make him a saint.

Toussaint, born in 1766 to devout Catholic slaves, left Haiti at 19 with his owners, the Berards, during a slave rebellion in the late 1700s, said Norman Darden, a Catholic layman from Manhattan who is writing Toussaint’s biography.

Toussaint apprenticed under a popular New York hairstylist, and many society women eventually sought him. Msgr. Robert M. O’Connell, who in 1990 introduced the “cause” of Toussaint’s sainthood to the Vatican, said that among Toussaint’s papers were dozens of letters from clients proclaiming him “my saint.” They thanked him for instructing them on the Gospel and counseling them in confidence on personal matters.

Toussaint, one of first black U.S. entrepreneurs, became rich but gave to the church and the poor instead of spending lavishly on himself. He supported his owner’s wife for 20 years after her husband died without any money.

Afterward, Toussaint was freed. He married and, with his wife, sheltered orphans, refugees and other homeless people in their flat. He founded one of New York’s first orphanages and raised money for the city’s first cathedral. He died in 1853.

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Toussaint maintained his faith and duty to help others “at a time slaves were considered nonentities but realized their own importance to God,” O’Connell said. He even risked his life to help others: During a yellow-fever epidemic, Toussaint entered barricaded buildings to nurse or pray with the sick.

Such stories are common in the African American community, said St. Augustine’s Dillard, whose parish has more than 2,500 members, 90% of whom trace their ancestry to Africa, and who take special pride in praying to the people of African heritage on the Catholic Church’s list of more than 4,500 saints.

The parish celebrates the August feast days of St. Monica and St. Augustine, the mother and son who are the parish’s patroness and patron, who were from north Africa. Augustine is the 4th and 5th century philosopher and theologian known for his theories of original sin, atonement and grace. Many black Catholics also take special note of the November feast day of St. Martin de Porres, a 16th century Dominican from Peru canonized in 1962 as the first black saint from the Americas.

Of more contemporary models, Dillard said his parishioners look to Sister Thea Bowman, the granddaughter of a slave, who was born in Mississippi, earned master’s and doctoral degrees in literature and linguistics and, as a Franciscan nun, became nationally known as a teacher, evangelist and advocate for intercultural understanding. Shortly before her death in 1990, Bowman spoke of race and fairness to a meeting of U.S. Catholic bishops, bringing many of them to tears, Dillard said.

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Another popular figure is Mother Mary Lange, who in 1829 in Baltimore started the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first U.S. order of black nuns, Dillard said.

The quest for Lange’s sainthood began about five years ago but “is going very slowly,” said the Rev. John Filippelli, a Josephite priest who for 24 years worked with the Oblate Sisters.

Thus far, Toussaint’s cause has moved relatively quickly, said O’Connell, retired pastor of St. Peter’s, the Lower Manhattan church where Toussaint attended Mass daily for 60 years.

Persuading the Vatican to approve Toussaint’s veneration was easy, he said, but proving the first miracle has been difficult. Three times O’Connell has offered proof that a person’s cancer went into remission or that he or she was healed completely by praying to Toussaint. Each time, the Sacred Congregation said it couldn’t agree because each person had seen a doctor at some point.

“Divine intervention” alone is proof of a miraculous healing, he said.

But O’Connell believes Toussaint’s canonization is only a matter of time: The more people hear his story, the more they pray to him to intercede for healing, and the more likely it becomes that a miracle will occur.

“I’m convinced from the [hundreds of] letters I’ve received that he’s working in the world,” he said.