ARTICLES

Black Catholics prominent at 1963 March

By Father John Boddie
Special to The Catholic Virginian

The following article is meant to highlight the observance of Black History Month this February.

The cover of the Sept. 3, 1963, Catholic Virginian (Vol. 38, #25) featured African American and white Catholics boarding buses to travel to Washington, D.C., to attend the Aug. 28 March on Washington.

The Catholic Interracial Council of Richmond sponsored the buses, and before they departed, black and white Catholics and a few Protestants attended the 7 a.m. Mass at Sacred Heart Cathedral.

According to the Missale Romanun, Aug. 28 is the feast of St. Augustine, bishop and doctor of the church. Augustine was bishop of the ancient African diocese of Hippo. He is most known for his great conversion from a life of slavery into one defined by humility and spiritual enrichment.

The pilgrims traveling to Washington that day most certainly heard words of inspiration, liberation, spiritual enrichment and personal conversion.

Black Roman Catholics, along with friends and other advocates, took a bold, positive and constructive step for freedom that faithful day. Regretfully, bishops and religious superiors prohibited some American Catholics (particularly clergy and consecrated religious) from attending the historic march.

Bishop John Joyce Russell of Richmond endorsed the pilgrimage by sending Fathers Antonio Malabad, John J. McMahon and Gabriel T. Maioriello to accompany the lay pilgrims.

Too many black Catholics had experienced the sting of racism from the segregated larger society and from some of the members of their own church.

By attending the March on Washington, they sought to make a bold and assertive statement about their dignity as human beings and as children of a loving God. Although Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle of Washington gave the invocation, the voice of God’s revelation was channeled dynamically through a young Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King Jr.

At the time the Diocese of Richmond had no black priests. Due to racism and other factors, many young African Americans were turned away from priestly vocations.

Some aspirants were directed to religious communities, including the Josephites and the Society of the Divine Word.

Fourteen years later, The Catholic Virginian reported that Bishop Walter F. Sullivan would confer the Sacrament of Holy Orders upon Walter C. Barrett, an African American from the city of Richmond. Richmond publicly celebrated the ordination of its first recognized black priest — 155 years after the diocese had been established in 1820. (Another black priest, Father Clarence Watkins, had been ordained for Richmond, but was now part of the Diocese of Arlington which had been established a year earlier in 1974.)

The Richmond Diocese was later blessed with five more men of African descent to serve the missionary diocese as priests. The final quarter of the 20th century was marked by many major firsts within Catholicism and among these were the charismatic and diverse ministries of Richmond’s black priests.

Unfortunately, through premature death and retirement, the diocese currently has only two African American priests in active ministry.

In recent years, the diocese has been blessed with the ministry of several priests born on the African continent and who originally were ordained for diocesan and religious communities in Africa. The catholicity of the church is transparent by the contributions of these faithful priests.

The stark reality of the clergy priest shortage is even more acute with regard to black vocations. As of this writing, nearly a generation has passed since the ordination of an African American to the priesthood for service to the Diocese of Richmond.

Black priests can serve the local church by their ability to denounce the sin of racism (that sadly endures even into the 21st century) and the scandal of white supremacy.

Ambition to join a particular faith community should never require an abandonment of one’s racial or ethnic heritage. Rather, the church is enhanced by its ethnic and racial diversity — diversity in the liturgy and perspective on sacred scripture and the other sacred sciences.

Initiation into the Roman Catholic tradition does not compel the candidate to totally assimilate from their native culture to another; it does encourage the neophytes to infuse the church with their special gifts.

Black priests are not monolithic and neither is the African American Catholic community.

Black Catholics can be found on the far-right and the far-left of the ecclesiastical and political spectrum. However, we are constantly challenged to boldly and aggressively share the gift of our blackness with the church.

This charge came from Pope Paul VI in a pastoral message regarding African tradition and values in 1967. It came from the Black Catholic bishops of the United States in 1984 with the publication of their pastoral letter “What We Have Seen and Heard.”

From the earliest committees, taskforces and commissions, black Catholics have labored to be a strong, devout and credible witness to the life and faith of the church.

Now is the time to boldly embrace the future and share the gift of blackness with a church that desperately needs it. Black Catholics seek integration, not assimilation within the church.

We have been challenged by our shepherds and pastors to employ Socratic questioning to the teachings of the church and to be open to the power of the spirit flowing from those teachings.

The spiritual charism that imbued the pilgrims on those buses that traveled from Richmond to the March on Washington 45 years ago is the gift of the spirit that empowers us to truly make the church authentically CATHOLIC!

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