Life story of first black US Catholic priest

CHICAGO – Few Americans know the story of Augustine Tolton, a slave who grew up to become the first acknowledged black Catholic priest in the United States.

Some Chicago buildings, including a home for senior citizens, carry his name. But the Roman Catholic church where he preached his sermons to flocks of adoring parishioners on Chicago’s South Side is long gone.”When he was alive, his life would probably not have been considered that newsworthy.He lived at a time when to be a person of colour automatically meant that you were not a person of significance,” says Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who served from 2001-2004 as the first black president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.Even Gregory, a native Chicagoan, did not know Tolton’s story until he was well into adulthood.”We need to find vehicles to make him better known today,” he says.To that end, a book about Tolton’s life – ‘From Slave to Priest’ – is being reissued by San Francisco-based Ignatius Press.The biography was written by Sister Caroline Hemesath, who first published the work in 1973.It is a story of struggle and perseverance.The second of three children, Tolton was born in 1854 to Catholic parents who were slaves in Missouri, just a few years before the start of America’s Civil War.His father, Peter Tolton, was one of many slaves who escaped to join the North’s Union army and fight for black freedom – and who died battling for that cause, according to Hemesath’s book.Augustine, along with his mother, Martha Jane, and his two siblings, escaped across the Mississippi River to Illinois, frantically rowing a boat while ducking gunfire from the South’s Confederate army.Eventually, they landed in Quincy, Illinois, where Martha Jane, Augustine and his brother Charley worked in a tobacco factory.Tolton met priests and nuns throughout his life who helped him, including some who taught him to read.Others, however, were angry that a black boy was being educated with whites and tried to stop him from realising his dream of becoming a priest.After years of rejection by US seminaries, pleas on his behalf from sympathetic Catholics finally allowed Tolton to study in Rome, leading to his ordination in 1886, when he was 31.Tolton had hoped to become a missionary in Africa as an escape from American racism.Instead, he was assigned to a church in Quincy and later Chicago – a bitter disappointment that he nonetheless dutifully accepted.He went on to face more hardship and resentment, and little financial support for the black churches he oversaw.”If anybody had an excuse to leave the Catholic Church, it was him,” says Harold Burke-Sivers, a deacon in a Portland, Oregon, parish, who is also African-American and who wrote the introduction to the newly issued biography.But Tolton recognised that Catholics who discriminated against him were violating church teaching on the dignity of all people and he dedicated himself to changing that, says Burke-Sivers.Tolton was credited with becoming a unifying force for black Catholics, especially in Chicago.”Good Father Gus,” as his parishioners often called him, was known for his eloquent sermons, his beautiful singing voice and his gift for playing the accordion.Tolton’s work was cut short when he collapsed and died during a brutal Chicago heat wave in 1897.He was 43.Burke-Sivers believes Tolton’s story is still relevant – not only for black Catholics.Nampa-APBut the Roman Catholic church where he preached his sermons to flocks of adoring parishioners on Chicago’s South Side is long gone.”When he was alive, his life would probably not have been considered that newsworthy.He lived at a time when to be a person of colour automatically meant that you were not a person of significance,” says Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who served from 2001-2004 as the first black president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.Even Gregory, a native Chicagoan, did not know Tolton’s story until he was well into adulthood.”We need to find vehicles to make him better known today,” he says.To that end, a book about Tolton’s life – ‘From Slave to Priest’ – is being reissued by San Francisco-based Ignatius Press.The biography was written by Sister Caroline Hemesath, who first published the work in 1973.It is a story of struggle and perseverance.The second of three children, Tolton was born in 1854 to Catholic parents who were slaves in Missouri, just a few years before the start of America’s Civil War.His father, Peter Tolton, was one of many slaves who escaped to join the North’s Union army and fight for black freedom – and who died battling for that cause, according to Hemesath’s book.Augustine, along with his mother, Martha Jane, and his two siblings, escaped across the Mississippi River to Illinois, frantically rowing a boat while ducking gunfire from the South’s Confederate army.Eventually, they landed in Quincy, Illinois, where Martha Jane, Augustine and his brother Charley worked in a tobacco factory.Tolton met priests and nuns throughout his life who helped him, including some who taught him to read.Others, however, were angry that a black boy was being educated with whites and tried to stop him from realising his dream of becoming a priest.After years of rejection by US seminaries, pleas on his behalf from sympathetic Catholics finally allowed Tolton to study in Rome, leading to his ordination in 1886, when he was 31.Tolton had hoped to become a missionary in Africa as an escape from American racism.Instead, he was assigned to a church in Quincy and later Chicago – a bitter disappointment that he nonetheless dutifully accepted.He went on to face more hardship and resentment, and little financial support for the black churches he oversaw.”If anybody had an excuse to leave the Catholic Church, it was him,” says Harold Burke-Sivers, a deacon in a Portland, Oregon, parish, who is also African-American and who wrote the introduction to the newly issued biography.But Tolton recognised that Catholics who discriminated against him were violating church teaching on the dignity of all people and he dedicated himself to changing that, says Burke-Sivers.Tolton was credited with becoming a unifying force for black Catholics, especially in Chicago.”Good Father Gus,” as his parishioners often called him, was known for his eloquent sermons, his beautiful singing voice and his gift for playing the accordion.Tolton’s work was cut short when he collapsed and died during a brutal Chicago heat wave in 1897.He was 43.Burke-Sivers believes Tolton’s story is still relevant – not only for black Catholics.Nampa-AP