Six Men & Women of African Descent on the Road to Sainthood
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Petition
Please consider signing a petition to Pope Francis in support of the canonization of six African Americans on the path to sainthood asking him to name Pierre Toussaint, Mother Mary Lange, Henriette DeLille, Augustus Tolton, Julie Greeley, and Sr. Thea Bowman as Catholic saints.
Sign the Petition Letter to Pope Francis
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Mother Mary Lange, founder of first African American religious congregation, declared venerable
Pope Francis has advanced the sainthood cause of Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, a Black religious sister who founded the country’s first African American religious congregation in Baltimore in 1829.
The recognition of Lange’s heroic virtue and the advancement of her cause from Servant of God to venerable was announced by the Vatican in a decree signed on June 22. The Church will now need to approve a miracle attributed to her intercession before she can be beatified.
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Their Stories
Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1776-1853) was born a slave in Haiti. Philanthropist & Founder of many Catholic charitable works.
Venerable Mother Mary Lange, 1784-1882) was the foundress and first Superior General of the Oblate Sisters of Providence (1829-1832), the first congregation of African American women religious in the history of the Catholic Church.
Venerable Henriette Delille (1813-1862) was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, where she lived all of her life. She was determined to help those in need for the love of Jesus and for the sake of the Gospel.
Fr. Augustus Tolton(1854-1897) was the first Roman Catholic priest in the United States publicly known to be black when he was ordained in 1886.
Julia Greeley (1833&1848-1918) was born into slavery, at Hannibal, Missouri. Freed by Missouri's Emancipation Act in 1865, Julia subsequently earned her keep by serving white families in Missouri, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico—though mostly in the Denver area
Sr. Thea Bowman, FSPA (1937-1990) was a self-proclaimed, “old folks’ child”. She is acclaimed a “holy woman” in the hearts of those who knew and loved her and continue to seek her intercession for guidance.
Their Stories Video
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"Opinion: The sainthood process doesn’t work for US Blacks because they don’t see us"
Article by Ralph E. Moore, Jr.
Some might find it hard to believe, but there are no African-American saints recognized officially by the Catholic Church. There are 11 White American saints, including Mother Elizabeth Seton, Bishop John Neumann, and Mother Katharine Drexel.
In 2022, how can this be? How can this inequity exist when Black, brown, and Indigenous Americans have endured much pain and suffering—particularly at the hands of the Catholic Church—in America and around the world?
Blacks and other persons of color have endured enslavement, racial segregation, silence from the Church in the face of mass incarceration, and modest attempts at charity to counter the nation’s mass poverty instead of serious words and meaningful works for change.
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