As we celebrate Black History Month, we honor four leaders of African descent who are on the path to sainthood: Mother Mary Lange, Venerable Pierre Toussaint, Mother Henriette Delille, and Venerable Augustus Tolton.
Mother Mary Lange
”What were the works of Mother Mary Lange? We know of her private school in the early 1800s, of her academy in 1828 and of her religious foundation in 1829. But, there was also an orphanage, a widow’s home, spiritual direction, religious education classes and vocational training. The early Sisters did home visiting and conducted night schools so black adults could learn to read and write. When the Civil War was over, Baltimore was flooded with black war orphans. Mother Mary gathered 60 of them and began a new era of caring for destitute children. She was a religious pioneer.” (Sr. Reginald Gerdes, OSP, What We Have Seen and Heard, pg # 81).
Click here to learn more about Mother Mary Lange’s life and work.
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Venerable Pierre Toussaint
“Pierre Toussaint was born a slave in 1766 in the French colony of Saint Domingue, which is modern-day Haiti. His great-grandmother had been born in Africa and sold into slavery in the Caribbean. Pierre worked as a house slave inside a plantation owned by Jean Berard. He was educated by the family’s tutors, which was very unusual for the time.
“When political unrest came to the island, his master sent his wife to New York for safekeeping in 1787. Pierre and his sister, Rosalie, were sent along. There in New York Pierre was allowed to train as a hairdresser. He earned his own money, and when his owner’s family fell on hard times, he used that money to take care of them. Madame Berard promised to free him when she died, which she did in 1807, when Pierre was 41.”
Source: RCL Benziger (Click to read more.)
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Mother Henriette Delille
The story of this sainted lady is interesting, even controversial. Most sources call her a “free woman of color,” an expression used during the time of Negro slavery in this country to denote a woman of African descent who was not (either never or no longer) a slave. “Henriette worked within church institutions, but when she tried to become a postulant, she was refused by both Ursuline and Carmelite orders because of her color. If she’d passed for white, she most likely would have been admitted. With a friend Juliette Gaudin, also a free person of color, Henriette Delille established a home for the elderly and bought a house to teach religion, both serving nonwhites. In teaching nonwhites, she defied the law against educating nonwhites. With Juliette Gaudin and another free person of color, Josephine Charles, Henriette Delille gathered interested women together, and they founded a sisterhood, Sisters of the Holy Family. They provided nursing care and a home for orphans.” Source: Learn Religions (Click to read more.)
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Venerable Augustus Tolton
Augustus Tolton, ordained a priest in 1886, was the first Catholic priest in the United States publicly known to be black. Augustus was born into a family of slaves in Missouri, in 1854. He studied for the priesthood in Rome and was ordained at the Basilica of St John Lateran in 1886 when he was 31 years of age. He returned to the United States soon afterwards where he served the black community, mostly in Chicago.
The Archdiocese of Chicago’s official website for the Cause for Sainthood for Father Augustus Tolton includes historical information about his life, various videos that can be viewed on line, and other important information about his life.
