VENERABLE AUGUSTUS TOLTON
THE PATH TO THE FIRST
BLACK SAINT? by Suzanne Hanney
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ORN A SLAVE, Father Augustus Tolton was the first African American to be ordained a Roman Catholic priest, in 1886. Tolton is also on a path to become possibly the first Black saint in U.S. history.
Tolton was then given the title “Venerable.” That means he lived according to theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance at a heroic level in surmounting the challenges set before him.
Tolton would be a saint for these times, says the Most Rev. Joseph Perry, auxiliary bishop of Chicago, because he was a Black man who persevered through great trials, suffered patiently, practiced works of mercy and evangelized to South Side poor with a focus on saving souls and spreading God’s love.
“Lessons from his early life as a slave and the prejudice he endured in becoming a priest still apply today with our current problems of racial and social injustices and inequities that divide neighborhoods, churches and communities by race, class and ethnicity,” Perry said in archdiocesan prepared material in 2019.
“Yes, he did all of that. He is an example for African Americans because he went through the worst of their historic experience. He encompasses Black history. In his whole life, he was told the word ‘No’ more than anything,” said Perry, who is postulator for Tolton’s cause with the Vatican, in a telephone interview.
The slavery experience within African American history provides important insights to American Catholic life because African Americans have faced resistance from nearly every institution, Perry told the National Catholic Register in 2016. “How [do] you get through that and still hold onto your faith in God, still have a sense of hope, and still have some sense of charity toward your neighbor who is not Black? I think that’s the legacy of the Black struggle.”
COVERSTORY
“Everywhere he turned, there were these blockages,” Perry continued. “The country was in this visual and emotional dissonance whenever a Black person entered spaces they were not allowed to enter. Everywhere he turned, he was running into these obstacles. He was a priest to everyone, but when white people were gravitating to him, he was told to leave them alone and make sure their contributions got to white churches.”
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Tolton was a household name when Perry was an African American seminarian in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But it was Cardinal Francis George, who was so moved after reading Tolton’s definitive biography, “From Slave to Priest,” by Caroline Hemesath, S.S.F. (Ignatius Press, 1973/2006) that he mentioned in passing to Perry that he was contemplating asking Rome to consider Tolton for possible sainthood. Cardinal George, in 2011, initiated Tolton’s case with the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, in Rome. A working document, or positio of 1,000 pages was compiled, with historic testimonies by witnesses of the Black priest’s life. A nine-member team of theologians unanimously recommended him, as did a committee of cardinals, and then Pope Francis, in June 2019.
Tolton was a 9-year-old slave on the Stephen Elliot plantation in Brush Creek, Mo., in July 1863, when Elliot died, leaving the plantation in debt. Augustus and his brother, Charley, one year older, had already been field hands with lash marks on their bodies when Elliot’s widow, Ann, had the plantation appraised– including its slaves. Augustus was valued at $25, Charley at $100, their 20-month-old baby sister Anne at $75 and their mother, Martha, at $59. Martha knew that a slave sale would undoubtedly mean that her family would be split up. That’s what happened when she had been given as part of Ann’s wedding dowry in 1849. Martha had later married Peter Tolton, who went to fight with the Union Army in the Civil War and who died in a military hospital. All alone, Martha decided to flee with her children on the Underground Railroad. Despite the Emancipation Proclamation signed earlier in 1863, the Fugitive Slave Act was still being enforced. Captured slaves were returned to their masters. Those who assisted would-be escapees paid devastating fines.
