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FLATLANDS – There are currently six African-Americans on the path to sainthood in the Catholic Church, and 18-year-old Jayden Ellis is excited about the prospect of their canonization.
“Saints are a mirror for us. It’s going to be really cool to look in that mirror and see a part of you reflected,” said Ellis, who looked like a six-figure saint.
The Diocese of Brooklyn’s Black Catholic History Month was held Saturday, Nov. 19, at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Flatlands, honoring six people — Pierre Toussaint, Mother Mary Lange, Henriette DeLille, Julia Greeley, Augustus Tolton, and Sister. Thea Bowman – and the service provided a rallying point for supporters for their canonization.
The elevation of six candidates to sainthood at Saturday’s Mass would be a great honor for many black Catholics, who sometimes feel that their people’s contributions to the church over the centuries have been unfairly ignored.
Gemma Faltin-Christian, parish priest of St. Matthew’s Church in Coron Heights, said the canonization will increase the amount of respect for those being canonized, as well as for black Catholics in general. “It would be a church that declares our history is important,” he said.
“There are many saints. It would be great if we could join,” said Faltin-Christian’s friend and fellow parishioner Patricia Brown of St. Matthew’s Church.
Venus Sepmer, who traveled from Uniondale, New York, to Brooklyn to attend the mass, lamented that the stories of the six candidates are not well known.
“The church needs to do a better job of getting the word out about their achievements,” he said. “Education is the key.”
A former slave, Toussaint was an entrepreneur who helped finance the construction of what is now St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in Soho. Mother Mary Lange founded the Oblate Sisters, the first African-American religious order. Henriette DeLille was the founder of the Sisters of the Holy Family.
Julia Greeley was known as Denver’s “Angel of Charity” for her many efforts to help former enslaved families in need. Augustus Tolton was the first black Catholic priest in America. Sister Thea Bowman was a nun, teacher and musician who sought to become more involved in the Catholic Church.
“We’re here to celebrate something that some people think doesn’t exist — the rich history of black Catholics,” Father Kareem Smith said at the Mass organized by the Diocese of Brooklyn’s Vicariate for Black Catholic Care and the Apostolate of Cultural Diversity. of the Archdiocese of New York. “We came here this afternoon to assert our identity.”
Father Smith, administrator of St. Michael the Archangel Church in the Bronx, was invited to celebrate Mass by the vicar of the vicar, Father Alonzo Cox.
Black Catholic History Month is a relatively new celebration in the history of the church. It was created in 1990 at the behest of the National Black Clergy Group, which met at Fordham University in July of that year and voted to dedicate an entire month to celebrating the contributions of black Catholics.
November was chosen as the month to celebrate Black Catholic history because it coincides with other notable dates important to Black Catholics, including the feast of Saint Martin De Porres, a social justice advocate.
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