JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. OSV News – The soft-spoken cleric felt a combination of weariness and relief as the train pulled into the station.
Father Augustus Tolton, formerly enslaved, formerly deprived of his priestly aspirations, formerly ostracized in the land of his upbringing for being too effective in his ministry, had finally arrived in a new mission field – Chicago.
It was Dec. 19, 1889. He began the final and most fruitful phase of his ministry just over 135 years ago.
A Missouri native, he is recognized as the first African American to be ordained a priest. A candidate for sainthood, he has the title of “Venerable.”
“Christmas must have been very subdued for him that year,” stated Bishop Joseph N. Perry, retired auxiliary bishop of Chicago and co-postulator for Father Tolton’s sainthood cause.
He was away from his mom and sister and “away from his former parish” with “the feeling of having been pushed out.”
“It had to be so overwhelming for him,” Bishop Perry surmised. “It was hard for him to grasp. His (former) bishop and particularly neighboring priests wanted him out of town.”
Yet, he had good reason to hope for something better.
“It was the graciousness of a Southern gentleman named Archbishop Feehan who invited him to help this fledgling group of Black Catholics worshipping in a basement of a church in downtown Chicago,” said Bishop Perry, who himself is Black and a descendant of slaves.
Archbishop Patrick Augustine Feehan led the Chicago Archdiocese from 1880 until his death in 1902. A priest of the St. Louis Archdiocese, he previously served as bishop of Nashville, Tennessee.
The Sunday after Father Tolton’s arrival found him offering Mass for about 30 Black Catholics from all over the city in a subterranean space accessible from a side door into St. Mary Church.
“He cultivated that community very well, and before he knew it, there were 600 people,” Bishop Perry told The Catholic Missourian, newspaper of the Diocese of Jefferson City. “That inspired the archbishop to build a parish for Black Catholics.”
“That’s how it all started here,” Bishop Perry said with delight.
The late 19th century was a time of unprecedented immigration to the United States, and large cities often had separate churches for people from different nationalities to help them hold onto their faith and their identity.
Father Tolton, born in 1854 into a family of enslaved people in part of what is now the Jefferson City Diocese, was baptized Catholic in an old log church where the stone St. Peter Church in Brush Creek now stands.
His father joined the Union Army at the beginning of the Civil War, and the rest of the family made a daring escape across the Mississippi River into Illinois, a free state, soon thereafter.
His mother, Martha Jane Tolton, continued to form her children in the faith after her husband died in the war.
The teachers at St. Peter School in Quincy, Illinois, helped young “Gus” catch up on his studies in religion and secular subjects.
Over time, he relentlessly pursued his priestly calling, despite the fact that no Catholic seminary in the country at that time would enroll a Black man.
With help from priests, religious sisters and brothers and other friends in Quincy, he was eventually accepted to the Pontifical Collegium Urbanum de Propaganda Fide in Rome, and was ordained there in 1886 at St. John Lateran Basilica.
The cardinal prefect of the Propagation of the Faith sent the new priest back to Quincy to serve as a missionary in the place where he had grown up and ministered as a lay catechist.
As pastor of St. Joseph Parish, established for Black Catholics in Quincy, he became a diligent and respected spiritual leader. White Catholics even began attending the mission.
Issues of race and professional jealousy drove a wedge between Father Tolton and several other priests, making it increasingly difficult for him to carry out his priestly ministry in Quincy, although he loved the people dearly.
He wrote to Archbishop Feehan, who contacted Father Tolton’s superiors in Rome, asking for him to be sent to Chicago.
When the orders finally came, Father Tolton left Quincy abruptly.
“He only told his mother, Martha Jane, and his sister, Anne, that he was leaving, and the next thing you know, he’s hopping on a train to come to Chicago,” said Bishop Perry.
“I think things finally came to such a boiling point, he either did not have time or felt that he could not emotionally say goodbye to the people he had nurtured in his pastoral care at St. Joseph in Quincy,” he said.
Father Tolton got to work in Chicago as quickly as he had left Quincy and Brush Creek. It was the last week of Advent.
“He celebrated Christmas that year with his new family of 30-some people in the church basement at Ninth and Wabash,” said Bishop Perry.
As Father Tolton had done so many times in the past, he again placed himself completely in God’s hands.
“Father Tolton, by reason of his own religiosity, trusted in God, and that trust had taken him this far,” said Bishop Perry.
“This was to be a blip in the whole adventure – a significant blip, mind you – but the Lord was carving something new for him, in which he could begin to blossom as a priest in his own right,” the bishop stated.
Father Tolton stayed in contact with Archbishop Feehan and by letters to St. Katharine Drexel, foundress of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in Philadelphia, and Josephite Father James Flaherty in Baltimore.
“He leaned on them for friendship,” Bishop Perry noted.
He also revered his parishioners and fellow priests.
“His dossier indicates he was warmly accepted by the clergy here,” said Bishop Perry. “And we know how well he was loved by the number of people who turned out for his funeral. He was really appreciated.”
During Father Tolton’s time in Chicago, he and early civil rights leader Daniel Rudd helped establish the National Black Catholic Congress, which was at first known as the Colored Catholic Congress. The organization’s first gathering was in 1889 in Washington.
“Father Tolton was thoroughly convinced that the Catholic Church was the best thing going at that time for helping Black people,” said Bishop Perry.
Father Tolton could see that no other force in American society at that time had both the resources and the spiritual mandate to help Black people overcome the lingering effects of slavery and ongoing discrimination.
He ministered intensely, guarding the souls of his parishioners and helping with their material needs in any way he could.
Exhausted, he died of heatstroke while walking back to his rectory on June 9, 1897, at age 43. He was buried in St. Peter Cemetery in Quincy.
He was largely forgotten until the publication of “From Slavery to Priest: A Biography of the Reverend Augustine Tolton,” by Franciscan Sister Caroline Hemesath, in 1973.
Interest in Father Tolton’s story spread, and prayers for his intercession vastly increased.
The Chicago Archdiocese opened an official sainthood cause for him in 2010 and Pope Francis declared him “Venerable” in 2018. The priest is one of six Black Catholics from the United States being considered for sainthood.
Signs and favors attributed to God through Father Tolton’s intercession continue to be reported and investigated.
Bishop Perry believes Catholics today can learn a great deal from how Father Tolton handled his travails and transitions.
“When you consider the kind of world we live in and the society we live in, he teaches us how to handle disappointment,” said Bishop Perry. “And not just simply disappointment, mind you, but protracted disappointment, when most of life comes to you with the word ‘no,’ not ‘yes.'”
Father Tolton could have left the priesthood and left the church.
“But … I think his faith in God really was his resource,” said Bishop Perry. “And he turned out to be a stalwart priest. I think he models for us how to live the Christian faith in times of absolute nonsense.”
“We went from having an empire try to drown us in our own blood, to all kinds of persecution and denunciation, and one thing after another, and somehow, we’re still here,” Bishop Perry continued. “We have before us the model of the saints who helped us do that. I think Father Tolton is one of them.”
When asked what Catholics should take to God while thinking of Father Tolton’s arrival in Chicago, Bishop Perry offered a spontaneous prayer.
“Lord, my life is in your hands!” he prayed. “And I see from time to time, I see a cross in my life, but I accept it as a blessing, an opportunity to come to know your sacrifice on our behalf. I hope to make this sacrifice something that you can use, O Lord, for somebody else.”
Jay Nies is editor of The Catholic Missourian, newspaper of the Diocese of Jefferson City.
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