Black Catholicism orAfrican-American Catholicism comprises theAfrican-American people, beliefs, and practices in theCatholic Church.
There are around three million Black Catholics in the United States, making up 6% of the total population of African Americans, who are mostlyProtestant, and 4% ofAmerican Catholics.[1][2] Black Catholics in America are a heavily immigrant population, with 68% being born in the United States, 12% born inAfrica, 11% born in theCaribbean and 5% born in other parts of Central or South America.[3] About a quarter of Black Catholics worship inhistorically black parishes,[4] most of which were established during theJim Crow era as a means ofracial segregation. Others were established inblack communities and merely reflected the surrounding population, while the most recent crop came about due to population displacement (White flight) during and after theGreat Migration.[5]
Prior to theSecond Vatican Council, Black Catholics attendedMass in Latin, as did the rest of theWestern Church, and did not display much difference in terms ofliturgy or spiritual patrimony.[6] During the 1950s innovators such asClarence Rivers began to integrateNegro spirituals into settings of theMass;[7] this trend eventually blossomed into the so-calledBlack Catholic Movement during the largerBlack Power zeitgeist of the late 1960s and 1970s.[8] Some have termed this period the "Black Catholic Revolution" or the "Black Catholic Revolt".[9] As this newfoundBlack Consciousness swept up many black clergy,consecratedreligious, andlaypeople, Black Catholicism came of age.[8] Entire disciplines of Black Catholic studies emerged,[10]Gospel Mass became a staple of Black Catholic parishes,[11]Black Christian spirituality (formerly seen asProtestant) was also claimed by Black Catholics, and the Black Catholic Church emerged as a significant player in the public andecclesial life of the largerAmerican Church.
A large exodus of African-American Catholics (alongside other Catholics in America) during the 1970s was followed by a continually shrinking population of African Americans within the Catholic Church in the 21st century.[12][13] A 2021Pew Research study noted that only just over half of Black American adults who were raised Catholic still remain in the Church.[14] In 2025, Cardinal Robert Prevost—a descendant ofBlack Creole Catholics in New Orleans—was electedPope Leo XIV.
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While the term "black" is often used in reference to any (Sub-Saharan and/ordark-skinned) African-descended person, the term in apposition to "Catholicism" is usually used to refer to African-Americans. This became solidified during theblack pride movement of the late 60s and 70s, when blackness as an expressive cultural element became more and more popular in the public discourse. As "black" became the most common descriptor for African-Americans (replacing "negro"), so "Black Catholic" became the most common moniker for their Catholic adherents.
Developments in the expression of Catholicism among Black Catholics (especially within their own Catholic institutions) eventually led to a more independent identity within the Church, such that terms like "Black Catholicism" and "the Black Catholic Church" became more and more commonplace.
CatholicChristianity amongAfrican-descended people has its roots in the earliestconverts to Christianity, includingMark the Evangelist, the unnamedEthiopian eunuch,Simon of Cyrene, andSimeon Niger. Several of the earlyChurch Fathers were also native to Africa, includingClement of Alexandria,Origen,Tertullian,Athanasius,Cyril of Alexandria,Cyprian, andAugustine. SaintsPerpetua and Felicity andSaint Maurice (as well ashis military regiment), early martyrs, were also African.[15] There have also been three Africanpopes:Victor I,Melchaides (also a martyr), andGelasius I.[15] The vast majority of thesePatristic-era figures resided inNorth Africa, where various Christian communities thrived until theMuslim conquests of the region.[16] TheMuslim takeover of Southern Spain (Al-Andalus) forced a significant Catholic community from there into NorthAfrica, specifically Morocco; these individuals constituted theMozarabic tradition.
There were multiple early Christian kingdoms in Africa, the most notable of which emerged inEthiopia (thenAksum). Around this same era, however, there were alsothree Nubian Christian kingdoms, all of which were conquered and left little trace of their former glory; scholars have since recovered some of their history.[17] Due to theChalcedonian Schism in the 5th century, however, most of thisEastern (African) Christianity became divorced from Catholicism very early on.
Immediately prior to the dawn of theTransatlantic Slave Trade, Catholic Christianity in West Africa—the region that would produce virtually all of the individuals ending up inAmerica as slaves—was primarily limited to converts borne fromearly European missionary contact, especially in theKongo region.[18] Roughly a century before Europe made contact with what would become the United States, thePortuguese entered the Kongo and began to make converts and engage in trade; there was also some limitedslave-trading between the European power and their new African colleagues.[19]
The Portuguese appetite for African slaves quickly grew beyond the intentions or capacity of the Kongolese people, leading to one Kongo ruler going so far as to write thePortuguese king for assistance in stemming the tide of citizens being taken captive from his land.[20] Many of these victims would eventually be brought to the Americas, and some scholars have suggested their common cultural heritage and shared faith led them to instigate at leastone major rebellion in thecolonial United States.[19]
The first African Catholic slaves that arrived in what would eventually become the United States primarily came during the period ofSpanish colonization.Esteban, an African Catholic enslaved by Spaniards, was among the first European groups to enter the region in 1528, via what would become Florida. He would go on to serve on various other North American expeditions.[21] The Afro-Spanish conquistadorJuan Garrido enteredPuerto Rico in 1509, helping to conquer it for the white Spanish settlers.
African Catholics, slave and free, were also among the Spanish settlers who established theMission Nombre de Dios in the mid-16th century in what is nowSt. Augustine, Florida. Soon after, the newly establishedSpanish Florida territory was attracting numerousfugitive slaves from theThirteen Colonies. The Spanishfreed slaves who reached their territory if they converted to Catholicism. Most such freedmen settled atGracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose (Fort Mose), the first settlement of freed slaves in North America.[22]
Spain also settled the California region with a number of African andmulatto Catholics, including at least ten (and up to 26)[23] of the recently re-discoveredLos Pobladores, the 44 founders of Los Angeles in 1781.[24]
As more European nations became involved in thetransatlantic slave trade, multiple colonial powers would join the Spanish in bringing African slaves to theircolonies in North America. The French involvement would result in various new African Catholic communities, including the most famous, inLouisiana (specificallyNew Orleans). Here, slaves,affranchi (former slaves) andfree people of color (blacks born free) formed a unique hierarchy within the larger Americancaste system, in which free people of color enjoyed the most privilege (and some evenpassed forwhite) and slaves the least—though morephenotypically black individuals faced various prejudices whether they were slave or free. Even so,French Catholicism (and its influence after the French no longer ruled the area) became notable for its degree of interracialism, in which much of Church life showed little to noracial discrimination.[25]
The same could not be said of thethirteen American colonies ofBritish America, where Catholicism was less common and social strictures were more pronounced and harsh. There waslittle to no distinction made between free-born blacks (who were rare) andfreedmen, and while Catholic slave owners inColonial America were under the same mandate as any Catholics in that they were obligated to convert,baptize, and meet the spiritual needs of their slaves, they were not under any local government codes to the same effect (as were the French) and often neglected their duties in this regard.[26] After theRevolutionary War and the exit of France and Spain from most of North America, Black Catholics in America faced an increasingly unique situation asAfrican-Americans living inslavery and afteremancipation,segregation in the United States.
During this period a number of Black Catholics would make a name for themselves, includingVenerablePierre Toussaint, aHaitian-American born into slavery and brought to New York shortly after the founding of the United States. Freed by his owner in 1807, he would go on to become a famous hairdresser, as well as a notable philanthropist alongside his wifeJuliette. He is the first layperson to be buried in the crypt below the mainaltar ofSaint Patrick's Cathedral onFifth Avenue, normally reserved forbishops of theArchdiocese of New York.[27]
TheOblate Sisters of Providence were founded by Haitian-AmericannunMother Mary Elizabeth Lange and FrJames Nicholas Joubert in 1828 inBaltimore, in a time when black women were not allowed to join existingorders (which were all-white) and were thought to be unworthy of the spiritual task. Mother Lange has since been declared aServant of God and could soon be declared asaint. Dedicated to providing education to otherwise neglected black youths, the order would found the all-girlsSt Frances Academy in the same year as their founding, the first and oldest continually-operating Black Catholicschool in the US.[28]
The Oblates' 11th member,Anne Marie Becraft, was quite probably the illicit granddaughter ofCharles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. She startedGeorgetown Seminary, a school for black girls, in 1820 at age 15 (twelve years before joining the order).[29]
TheSisters of the Holy Family, founded in New Orleans in 1837 byMother Henriette Delille, was similar in origin and purpose to the Oblates, though founded by and made up ofCreole free women of color (i.e.,mixed-race women who were never enslaved). They too dedicated themselves to education and have operatedSt. Mary's Academy in New Orleans since its founding in 1867. They also founded the first and oldest Catholic nursing home in the United States,Lafon Nursing Facility, in 1841.[30]
That same year and in the same city,St Augustine's Catholic Church, the nation's oldest Black Catholic church, was founded by free blacks in the nation's oldest black neighborhood (Treme).[31]
In 1843, Haitian-American Catholics in Baltimore established theSociety of the Holy Family, a 200-memberdevotional group dedicated toBible study,prayer, and especially singing. It was the first Black Catholic lay group in the US. The group would disband after two years when thearchdiocese refused to let them use their large meeting hall.[32]
In 1845, one of the founding members of the Oblate sisters,Theresa Maxis Duchemin, helped found a predominantly-white order of sisters in Michigan, theIHM congregation. She had been the first US-born Black Catholic religious sister when she helped found the Oblates. Notably, due to racism her name and history was scrubbed from the IHM sisters' records for 160 years, until the early 1990s.[33]
In 1857, French CatholicpriestClaude Paschal Maistre obtainedfaculties from Archbishop of New OrleansAntoine Blanc to pastor the city's newly created interracialFrancophone parish,St Rose of Lima. There he ministered to a French-speaking congregation, encouraging them to formmutual aid societies (not unlike the one in Baltimore), includingLa Société des Soeurs de la Providence.[34]
After the breakout of theCivil War a few years later and the subsequentoccupation of New Orleans, Maistre and his new bishopJean-Marie Odin clashed over the race issue, as Odin supported theConfederacy and Maistre theUnion. The pastor promoted increasingly radical positions (includingabolitionism), fueled by the much-publicizedprogressivism of French Catholic clergy in his homeland,President Lincoln, and local Afro-Creole activists.[34]
In 1858, a group of free Black Catholics in Washington, D.C. opted out of their segregated status atSt Matthew's cathedral (where they were forced to worship in the basement) and foundedSt Augustine Catholic Church (originally called St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church), the first Black Catholic parish in D.C., which runs D.C.'s oldest black school and is considered the "Mother Church of Black Catholics".[35][36]
In 1863, theJesuits helped a black congregation (then meeting in the basement of theirSt. Ignatius Church) purchase a building, which would then become known asSt. Francis Xavier Church—the "first Catholic church in the United States for the use of an all-colored congregation".[37] (Other Catholic churches also lay claim to being the first Black parish in America, including the interracial but mostly Black congregations ofSt. Augustine Catholic Church in New Orleans andanother by the same name founded in 1829 inNatchitoches Parish, Louisiana.)
A Black Catholic,William Augustine Williams, would enterseminary in 1853, albeit inRome due to the ongoing prohibition of black seminarians and priests in the United States. Near the end of his studies (and after a series of discouraging indications and comments from his superiors), he dropped out of seminary in 1862, claiming that he longer felt he had a priestlyvocation.[38]
At least three Black Catholics (the Healy brothers)were ordained priests prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, though all three passed for white throughout their lives. Their race was known only to select mentors of theirs in the Church. One of them,James, would become in 1854 the first known African-American Catholic priest and the first such bishop in 1875. Another,Patrick, would in 1864 become the first black American to join a clerical religious order and the first black AmericanJesuit, in 1865 the first black American to earn a PhD, and in 1874 the first blackpresident of a white orCatholic university in the US (Georgetown University). Other than these three, there are not known to have been any other Black Catholic priests in America between the first African Catholic contact in 1509 (in Puerto Rico) and the ordination of the first openly-Black Catholic priest in 1886.[39]
After the Emancipation Proclamation, African-American Catholics became a single class of free black people, though the degree to which that freedom could be actualized varied.
In places such asLouisiana, old habits of separation between blacks born free and those born into slavery remained, which functioned partially on the basis ofcolorism but also on grounds of class,privilege, wealth, andsocial status. When parishes in places like New Orleans began to transition from the French tradition of interracialism to the American habit of strictracial segregation, Creoles (who tended to descend from free people of color) often resisted the move so as not to lose their elevated status as the more privilegedmilieu of African-Americans.[25]
Upon the official announcement of theEmancipation Proclamation in 1863, Fr Maistre immediatelydesegregated St Rose'ssacramental records—defying archdiocesan policy. A few months later, he celebrated a Mass championing Lincoln's edict, effectively ejecting hisracist white parishioners and drawing death threats (including one from a fellow priest).[34]
Abp Odin scolded Maistre for inciting "the love of liberty and independence" among slaves—eventually suspending him from ministry and placing the parish underinterdict (making it amortal sin to continue associating with Maistre sacramentally). Maistre defied the order(s), officiating—among other services—the funeral of Black CatholicUnion Army CptAndré Cailloux, defiantly attended by many of the priest's admirers.
Members of the mutual aid society Maistre helped found would thereafter petition the archbishop for a Black Catholic parish named after "St. Abraham Lincoln".[34] This request naturally went unfulfilled, and white-friendly Unionist agendas eventually led to the military-led reacquisition of St Rose by Odin in early 1864. Maistre, unfazed, inaugurated an illicit Black Catholic parish calledHoly Name of Jesus, whose supporters Odin came to despise. Maistre continued to publicly advocate for radical causes, including the commemoration ofJohn Brown's rebellion, the freeing of the slaves, andLincoln's assassination, while also advocating for black citizenship andvoting rights (which were briefly granted in Louisiana, beginning in 1868).[34]
After Odin's death in 1870, New Orleans' next prelate,Napoléon Perché, restored Maistre's faculties, closed Holy Name of Jesus, and reassigned him to St. Lawrence (in relatively remoteTerrebonne Parish). He would serve there until 1874, when health issues forced a return to New Orleans, where he lived in the archbishop's residence, until his death the next year. He was buried inSt. Louis Cemetery #2 with the Black Catholics.[34]
In 1886, the Black Catholic OhioanDaniel Rudd went national with a Black Catholic newspaper called theAmerican Catholic Tribune (originally a local paper as theOhio State Tribune), which ran until 1899 inCincinnati.[40]
Black Catholics continued to center primarily in what would become theWashington D.C. Metropolitan Area. One of these communities, in Norfolk, Virginia, foundedSt Joseph's Black Catholic Parish in 1889—later becoming known as the "Black basilica".[41]
That same year,Mother Mathilda Beasley, the first African-American nun to serve inGeorgia, started a short-lived order of black nuns inSavannah. She would also go on to start one of the firstorphanages in the US for African-American girls.[42]
Other areas also counted Black Catholics, includingMissouri, which—also in 1889—produced the nation's first openly-Black Catholic priest,Augustus Tolton. Born a slave inRalls County, he, his siblings and his mother found freedom inIllinois; he would later, with the help of supportive American bishops andVatican officials, attend seminary and be ordained in Europe (not unlike the Healy brothers). He went on to minister in Illinois, was declared Venerable in 2019, and could be declared a saint soon.[43]
Another Black Catholic from this era with an open cause forcanonization, Servant of GodJulia Greeley, was also born in Ralls County as a slave, before being taken toDenver in 1861. She converted to Catholicism in 1880, became a street evangelist andSecular Franciscan, and ministered to thepoor for the rest of her life (always at night, to avoid embarrassing white people she served).[44]
Black Catholics would soon begin to organize at the national level as well, first as theColored Catholic Congress in 1889 under the leadership of the aforementioned Daniel Rudd. Their inaugural gathering would include the audience ofPresident Grover Cleveland and a Mass celebrated by Fr Tolton. This group would meet annually for five years before shuttering.[45]
In 1891,Philadelphia heiressSaint Katharine Drexel founded theSisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a religious order dedicated to serving the black and Native American communities, and went on to found and staff countless Black Catholic schools for that purpose. She was canonized in the year 2000.[46]
From the period immediately preceding Emancipation, variousCatholic missions organizations began to dedicate themselves to the task of converting and ministering to black Americans, who were then for the most part held in slavery. Upon their gaining freedom, they became even more of a target, as a group now more freely able to choose their religious persuasion and activities.[47]
Chief among thesemissionaries were theMill Hill Fathers, a British religious order that operated in America largely as a black missions organization. As part of their efforts, they recruited a number of candidates for the priesthood, including an African-American namedCharles Uncles. He would go on to become, in 1891, the first Black Catholic priest ordained in the United States.[48]
By 1893, the head of the Mill Hill society's American operations, FrJohn R. Slattery, had convinced the Mill Hill superior to let the American wing spin off into its ownreligious society dedicated totally to African-American ministry. This would result in the founding of theSociety of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, most commonly known today as the Josephites. Slattery was named the firstSuperior general and Fr Uncles was among the founding members, another first for a Black Catholic.[49] Slattery founded theJosephite Harvest, the society's missions magazine, in 1888; it remains the longest-running such publication in the United States.
Racism within and outside of the society would sour the priestly experience for Fr Uncles, and he considered himself no longer a member of the order by the time of his death in 1933.[50] For this and various other reasons, Fr Slattery would eventually resign from his post, the priesthood, and eventuallyapostatize from the Church altogether in 1906. Subsequent Josephite superiors would scarcely accept or ordain blacks, and this lasted for several decades.[51]
In the late 19th century, Black Catholics in New Orleans began to join with Whites and other activists to oppose segregation, with the Crescent City being one of the few American locales to have previously experienced a much more interracial climate (this being while under French and Spanish rule).
In 1892, theCitizen's Committee of New Orleans (French:Comité des Citoyens) organizeddirect action against the streetcar companies in the city in an attempt to force the courts to take action. This involvedHomer Plessy, a light-skinned biracial Black Catholic (and member ofSt. Augustine Church), boarding aWhites-only streetcar, informing the operator that he was Black, and being arrested. The Committee hoped that, as the resulting court case advanced, segregation laws would be overturned. Instead, the opposite occurred, and theUS Supreme Court ruled inPlessy v. Ferguson that segregation was in fact legal nationwide. The decision would cast a dark shadow on the Black freedom struggle for the next 60 years.
At the same time, Black Catholics began to organize once again on the national level. Another Black Catholic newspaper,The Catholic Herald, operated during this period—though, unlike Rudd's earlier effort, TCH had the official endorsement of the Church (viaCardinal Gibbons). One extant issue exists from 1905.[40]
With African Americans being barred from entry into theKnights of Columbus due to racism, FrJohn Henry Dorsey (the second Black Catholic priest ordained in the US, and the second such Josephite) and six others from theMost Pure Heart of Mary parish inMobile, Alabama, founded theKnights of Peter Claver in 1909; they remain the largest Black Catholicfraternal order.[52][53][54]
In 1925, theFederated Colored Catholics formed under the leadership ofNAACP co-founderThomas Wyatt Turner, and would go on to address a variety of Black Catholic concerns, including the restrictive Josephite policies concerning black applicants.[55] The federation did not see much success on this front, however, despite friends in high places (such as the Vatican), and would undergo a split in the 1930s after two of the most powerful leaders in the group (white JesuitsWilliam Markoe andJohn LaFarge, Jr.) steered the group in a more interracial direction (against Turner's will). The splintering would result in LaFarge'sCatholic Interracial Council of New York.[56][57]
LaFarge also helped found theCardinal Gibbons Institute in Maryland, a Catholic school established in 1924 for Black Catholics, but clashed with the school's administrators "over many of the same issues with which he disagreed with Turner", and the school closed in 1933.[58]
Society of African Missions, St. Anthony's Mission House, and the Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary
TheSociety of African Missions began ministry in the United States in 1906, being given authority over Black Catholic ministry in the whole of theDiocese of Savannah—nine years after Fr.Ignatius Lissner first arrived stateside to promote SMA activities and fundraising.[59][60] The diocese then encompassed the whole of the state of Georgia, and as such Lissner and other SMA priests were responsible for founding some of the oldest Black parishes there (includingOur Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church inAtlanta, and St. Peter Claver Catholic Church inMacon'sPleasant Hill Historic District).[61]
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During his time in Savannah, Lissner also helped found theFranciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, in response to a Georgia law banning White teachers from teaching Black students.[62] Lissner enlisted the help ofMary Theodore Williams to found an order of Black nuns to teach there instead. The Handmaids were founded in 1917 and the group remained there in Georgia before following Lissner toNew Jersey in the 1920s, and later moving to New York.[61][63][59]
Lissner started in 1921 what was at the time the United States' only integrated seminary,St. Anthony's Mission House inBergen County, New Jersey. Black men were otherwise barred from all but one US Catholic seminary, and Lissner envisioned St. Anthony's as a solution.[62] Racism from the US bishops thwarted his goal, however, and only a few men are known to have been ordained from St. Anthony's. It closed in 1926.[61]
The US province of the SMAs was established in 1941 with Lissner as its firstprovincial superior. His administration establishedQueen of Apostles Seminary nearBoston, Massachusetts, which lasted from 1946 to the late 1960s.
AfterWorld War I, various clerical orders other than the Josephites would begin to pursue black ministry and vocations, most notably theSociety of the Divine Word. Partially due to the drought of black Josephite priests, the Divine Word missionaries opted to open a seminary in Mississippi specifically for African-Americans in 1920, so as to more fully open the door for them to holy orders. This venture,St. Augustine Seminary, was largely a success, and within a decade they had ordained a number of well-received black priests.[64]
In 1925, St Katharine Drexel used her fortune and connections to help foundXavier University of Louisiana (XULA) in New Orleans, the first and only CatholicHBCU.[65] She also helped found a second, short-lived Black Catholic college inGuthrie, Oklahoma, known asClaver College; it folded 1944 after 11 years.
Around the same time, blacks were beginning tomigrate by the millions from theJim Crow South to greener pastures north of theMason-Dixon line and west ofMississippi and theRockies. This resulted in mass exposure of traditionally-Protestant African-Americans to Catholic religion in places like Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles. As black families moved in, white families often moved out, leaving entire parishes—and, more importantly, parochial schools—open to the new black residents. This, combined with a missionary impulse on the part of local white clerics and nuns, led to mass recruitment of black Protestants to these schools, and eventually the parishes as well. African-Americans converted in droves, perhaps most notably in Chicago.[5]
The boom in Black Catholics in the North created an immediate opportunity for organizing and activism, which quickly took place—and in a markedly interracial (and even interfaith) fashion. TheCatholic Youth Organization (CYO) was founded in Chicago in 1930 and quickly became a hotspot for integrated Catholic activity. Dr.Arthur G. Falls, a major Black Catholic figure during this era, persuaded Servant of GodDorothy Day to open aCatholic Worker House there in 1935. Lafarge's Interracial Council movement arrived in the city in 1945.[66]
Even so,White flight combined with ArchbishopGeorge Mundelein's "national parish" strategy to more or less sanctify racial segregation in Chicago, as Black Catholics—despite not technically constituting a nationality—were "consigned" to such a parish themselves.[66]
Another effect of the Great Migration was an intersection with theHarlem Renaissance, wherein black intellectuals in NYC fomented an artistic revolution that made waves across the country.Mary Lou Williams, a prominent jazz artist in the movement, converted to Catholicism around this time, as didBillie Holiday andClaude McKay. A minor figure in the movement,Ellen Tarry, also became Catholic and wrote a number of religious works.
In the South, the successes of the Divine Word society in ordaining black priests, as well as other propitious factors, led to the integration of other orders (an early example being theBenedictines inCollegeville, Minnesota in the 1940s) as well as a number ofdioceses. The Josephites would soon fully open their seminary,St. Joseph's, to blacks as well.[67]
This growth in Black Catholic laypeople as well as priests would soon coalesce with the growingCivil rights movement to create a desire for more authentic recognition of black freedom and self-oversight within the Church, as racism andprejudice continued to be athorn in the side of the booming Black Catholic community (e.g., theJesuit Bend Incident).[68]
However, there would come a taste of the future in 1953, when the Dominican Divine Word priest FrJoseph O. Bowers became the first openly-Black Catholic bishop consecrated in the United States (though for service inAccra, in Africa); before departing for the motherland, he would ordain two black Divine Word seminarians—a black-on-black first. At that time, there were just over a hundred Black Catholic priests—compared to about 50,000 white.[69]
Bowers would attend anecumenical council in 1962,Vatican II (1962–1965).
When the Civil Rights Movement first began, much of the Catholic Church, black and white, was uninterested.[70] Many thatwere interested, given the potential for activist witness toCatholic social teaching, were met with scorn and derision, especially members of religious orders.[71] The Josephites, for example, sawrace consciousness as a threat—even a disqualifying character trait for blacks applying for their order.[72] Many female religious orders did not allow their members, black or white, to march or protest forcivil rights.[71]
Black Catholics were involved early on in the Civil Rights Movement, andJames Chaney—one of the three victims in theFreedom Summer Murders—was said to be devout.Diane Nash, a prominent lunch-counter demonstrator,Freedom Rider, voter registration advocate, andStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) co-founder, was also Catholic. Later,Mary Louise Smith precededRosa Parks as one of the first people arrested in the runup to theMontgomery bus boycott.
Eventually, as the movement entered full-swing, Catholics of all stripes would begin to participate, with white and black laypeople, priests,religious brothers, sisters, and nuns joining the fray—with some even becoming notable as such. One nun, SrMary Antona Ebo, was sent by theArchdiocese of St Louis to march inSelma with five other "Sisters of Selma", where she ended up being interviewed and hailed as afolk hero.[71]
"Yes, I am a Negro, and I am very proud of it."
— Sr Antona Ebo, March 10, 1965 (followingTurnaround Tuesday)
Sr Ebo would go on to become the first African-American woman to administer a hospital in the United States (St. Clare Hospital inBaraboo, Wisconsin).[71]
In 1962,Pope John XXIII convened the most recent Catholicecumenical council,Vatican II. A major change emanating from the council was the elimination ofLatin as the requiredliturgical language of theWestern portion of the Church.[73]
This change opened to the door forinculturation in places where it had not been dreamed of—but also in places where it had been. As early as the 1950s, under the creative eye of Black Catholics such as FrClarence Rivers, the fusion ofblack Gospel music withCatholic liturgy had been experimented with on a basic level.[74] Rivers' music (and musical direction) was used at the first official English-language Mass in the United States in 1964, including his watershed work,"God Is Love".[75]
Alongside this nascent inculturation came a second boom in Black Catholic numbers, as they increased by 220,000 (35%) during the 1960s—over half being converts.[76] In 1966, FrHarold R. Perry became the first openly-black bishop to serve in the US when he was namedauxiliary bishop of New Orleans.[77]
Following theassassination of Martin Luther King and itsassociated riots (includingMayor Daley'sshoot-to-kill order in Chicago), Black Catholics inaugurated a number of powerful new organizations in early 1968, including theNational Black Catholic Clergy Caucus (NBCC), organized by FrHerman Porter, and its sister organization, theNational Black Sisters' Conference (NBSC), organized by SrMartin de Porres Grey [Wikidata].[8]
The movement was headed off by the statement that came out of the inaugural NBCCC meeting in Detroit, in which the caucus members declared in the opening line that "the Catholic Church in the United States is primarily a white, racist institution."[8]
At least two of the requests made in the statement were answered rather quickly, as—with the help of a white Josephite superior general who advocated for it as early as 1967—thepermanent diaconate was restored in the United States in October 1968, and theNational Office for Black Catholics (NOBC) was established in 1970.[78]
It could be said the movement/revolution centered in Chicago, where a large number of Black Catholics resided in the late 1960s, forming sizable black parishes—though always under the leadership of white priests. FrGeorge Clements, one of the moreradical(ized) members of the inaugural NBCCC meeting, entered into an extended row withArchbishop John Cody over this lack of black pastors in Chicago and Black Catholic inculturation.[79]
Unconventional alliances with local black Protestant leaders and black radicalactivists resulted in innovative (and defiant) liturgical celebrations known asBlack Unity Mass, trans-parochial events where black priests donnedAfrocentricvestments, decorated thealtar similarly, and celebrated the Mass with a decidedly "black" liturgical flair. One such Mass in 1969 included an 80-voice gospel choir provided by theRev. Jesse Jackson and security provided by theBlack Panthers.[79]
One of the first parishes to establish a gospel choir was St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in New Orleans, in 1969 (now known as St. Katharine Drexel Catholic Church).[80] One of the first musicians to experiment similarly wasGrayson Warren Brown, a Presbyterian convert who set the entire Mass to gospel-style music. FrWilliam Norvel, a Josephite, helped introduce gospel choirs to Black Catholic parishes nationwide (especially in D.C. and Los Angeles). This "Gospel Mass" trend quickly spread across the nation.[11]
After the NOBC was allotted only 30% of their requested funding for 1970 by theUnited States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and afterCardinal O'Boyle (a staunch supporter of Civil Rights) announced his retirement, a delegation of Black Catholics led by theNational Black Catholic Lay Caucus (NBCLC, or NBLCC) president brought their grievances all the way to theVatican in 1971.[81][82]
That same year, the NBSC, NOBC, and Black Catholic laypeople spearheaded a national campaign to stop the mass closings of Catholic schools in urban and predominantly-black communities.[83]
The unrest extended into seminaries as well—including the Josephites', where tensions between the more race-conscious black students/members and their white peers as well as teachers/elders (black and white) boiled over into open hostility, leading to an emptying of much of the seminary and the resignation of a number of Josephite priests. By 1971, the seminary had closed for studies. To this day, Josephite seminarians study at nearby universities and their vocations from black Americans has never recovered.[84][85]
This phenomenon of resignation was felt across Black Catholicism in the 1970s and coincided with a generalnadir of American Catholicism overall (the latter being more or less unrelated to race issues). Catholics of all races beganlapsing in droves, and between 1970 and 1975, hundreds of Black Catholic seminarians, dozens (~13%) of Black Catholic priests, and 125 black nuns (~14%) left their posts, including NBCS foundress Sr Martin de Porres Grey in 1974. Up to 20% of Black Catholics stopped practicing.[12][13]
Even with the decline in vocations and lay practice during the 1970s, various new national Black Catholic organizations emerged. In 1976, theNational Association of Black Catholic Administrators (NABCA) was founded, aconsortium of the diocesan Black Catholic offices/ministries from around the country. Eventually this organization effectively replaced the NOBC, after a major conflict between the Office and the NBSC involving leadership disputes.[86]
TheBlack Catholic Theological Symposium (BCTS), a yearly gathering dedicated to the promotion of Black Catholic theology, emerged in 1978 in Baltimore. From it has emerged some of the leading voices not only in Black Catholic theology, but inWomanist andblack theology as well: writers such as Dr.Diana L. Hayes, Dr.M. Shawn Copeland, SrJamie T. Phelps, OP, FrCyprian Davis, OSB, and Servant of GodThea Bowman have had an immeasurable impact in advancing the cause of Black Catholic history, theology,theory, and liturgy.[87][88]
The next year, theInstitute for Black Catholic Studies was founded at Xavier University of Louisiana. Every summer since, it has hosted a variety of accredited courses on Black Catholic theology, ministry, ethics, and history, offering aContinuing education & Enrichment program as well as aMaster of Theology degree—"the only graduate theology program in the western hemisphere taught from a Black Catholic perspective".[89][90]
That same year, the USCCB issued apastoral letter dissecting and condemning racism, entitled "Brothers and Sisters to Us", for the first time addressing the issue in a group publication.[91]
The end of the Black Catholic Movement could be said to have been precipitated by one FrGeorge Stallings, a Black Catholic priest known for his fiery activism and no-holds-barred demands of the Church. He was a vocal leader in pressing for a Black Catholic rite (complete with bishops and the associated episcopal structure) during the 70s and 80s.[92]
Some of those calls were answered whenEugene A. Marino was named auxiliary bishop of Washington in 1974, and whenJoseph L. Howze became the first openly-Black Catholic bishop of a diocese when he was named Bishop of Biloxi in 1977.[93] Marino would become the first-ever Black Catholicarchbishop in 1988, following an open demand made to the USCCB in 1985.[94] Marino would resign from his archbishopric two years after his appointment, following a sex scandal involving his secret marriage (and impregnation) of a Church employee.[95]
Between 1966 and 1988, the Holy See would name 13 black bishops, and in 1984 these bishops would issue their own pastoral letter entitled "What We Have Seen and Heard", explaining the nature, value, and strength of Black Catholicism.[96][97]
(Also of note was one bishop,Raymond Caesar, SVD, who was a native ofEunice, Louisiana but was later appointed as a bishop inPapua New Guinea in 1978. He was the first and only African American to be made a bishop of a foreign diocese, and is typically not included in lists of US black bishops.)
In 1987, theNational Black Catholic Congress (NBCC) emerged as a purported successor to Daniel Rudd's Colored Catholic Congress movement of the late 19th century, this time founded as a nonprofit under the name of FrJohn Ricard, future bishop of Pensacola-Tallahassee and future Superior General of the Josephites, in collaboration with the NABCA.[98][99][86]
That same year, the first and only Black Catholichymnal was published; entitled "Lead Me, Guide Me", it integrates a litany of traditional black Gospelhymns alongside a number of traditional Catholic hymns. The preface was penned by noteworthy Black Catholic liturgists, explaining the history and compatibility of black Christian worship with theRoman Rite of the Mass.[100][101]
Two years later in 1989,Unity Explosion was founded inDallas as an annualconference celebrating Black Catholic liturgy and expression. It would grow into a more general Black Catholic advocacy conference sponsored by the USCCB, and is preceded annually by a pre-conference, theRoderick J. Bell Institute for African-American Sacred Music.[102]
In 1990, Benedictine Fr Cyprian Davis published "History of Black Catholics in the United States", a book that covered the history of Black Catholics from Esteban's expedition in the 16th century all the way to the period of the late 80s.[clarification needed] It remains the primary text for the general history of Black Catholics.[103] That same year in July, he and his fellow Clergy Caucus members establishedBlack Catholic History Month, to be celebrated each year in November.[104]
In 1991, theNational Association of Black Catholic Deacons began operations, and that same year, Sr Jamie Phelps helped to restart the annual meetings of the BCTS.[105][106]
The aforementioned St Joseph's Black Catholic Church in Norfolk, having been merged with St Mary of the Immaculate Conception (Towson) in 1961 andrenamed as such, was named aminor basilica in 1991—allegedly the first "black basilica" (though preceded byOur Lady of Sorrows Basilica in Chicago) and the first minor basilica inVirginia.[107][108]
Around the same time, twin Divine Word priestsCharles andChester Smith, with their fellow VerbitesAnthony Clark andKen Hamilton, established theBowman-Francis Ministry, a Black Catholic youthoutreach ministry, and its yearlySankofa Conference.[109]
At the behest of theBlack Catholic Joint Conference—the annual meeting of the NBCCC, NBSC, NBCSA and NABCD (including the deacons' wives)—a survey was taken of Black Catholics in the early 1990s to gauge the need for and interest in an independent rite; the NBCCC formed anAfrican American Catholic Rite Committee (AACRC) and in 1991 published a monograph entitled "Right Rites", offering a proposal for a study that would be presented at the next year's Black Catholic Congress. Their plan was much like Stallings'. Black Catholic theologian (and future bishop)Edward Braxton proposed an alternative plan, but neither would come to fruition.[110]
Similar proposals had been floated by the bishops themselves as far back as thePlenary Councils of Baltimore in the 1800s, but the desire to do much for Black Catholics was incredibly sparse then and no action was taken. History repeated itself, and the AACRC disbanded after the results of the survey were released.[111][112]
In 2001, BishopWilton Gregory of Belleville was appointed president of theUnited States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the first African American ever to head an episcopal conference.
Native African priests have come to outnumber African-American priests in the United States, with the former often pastoring black parishes.[113] The Josephites, the one clerical order ministering specifically to African-Americans, receives almost all of their seminarians, brothers and priests fromNigeria.[85]
A documentary on the Josephites,Enduring Faith, was released onPBS in 2000, written, produced, and directed by Paul Lamont and narrated byAndre Braugher. It was nominated for anEmmy in 2001, and received Telly, Crystal Communicator, Proclaim, and US International Film and Video Festival awards.[114][115][116]
The Josephites—having then for nearly 120 years been ministering specifically to African Americans—would make history in 2011, at long last appointing an African American, Fr Norvel, as their first black superior general. Norvel was instrumental in shifting the order's vocational focus to Africa.[85]
A Black Catholic liturgical conference similar to Unity Explosion developed in New Orleans in 2004, theArchbishop Lyke Conference, named after the aforementioned Black Catholic liturgist.[117] In 2012, a second edition of the "Lead Me, Guide" hymnal was released.[118]
Following the Vatican's approval of theZaire Use (a uniqueCongolese form of the Roman Rite) in 1988, various Black Catholic parishes in the U.S. began to implement at least some its rubrics.[119] Two parishes in theSan Francisco Bay Area,St Columba inOakland andSt Paul of the Shipwreck in theBayview neighborhood of San Francisco, made such implementations with the help of Black Catholic professor and music ministerM. Roger Holland II.
FrMichael Pfleger, a white priest and activist pastoringSaint Sabina Church, a Black Catholic parish in Chicago, has helped introduce yet more modem black forms of worship to the Mass, including the use of a "praise team" (a smaller vocal ensemble that generally singscontemporary gospel rather thantraditional) and other elements drawn from the more contemporary black Church (and evenPentecostal) tradition.[120]
In 2015, the USCCB issued a series of documents in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement, including a "Black Catholic HistoryRosary" created by Dr.Kirk P. Gaddy.[121]
As part of the NBCC Congress XII proceedings in 2017, representatives appointed by bishops from every diocese in the United States issued a "Pastoral Plan of Action" meant to address the needs of Black Catholics nationwide.[122][123]
A year later, the USCCB issued its first pastoral letter against racism in 39 years, following the first wave ofBlack Lives Matter protests. Entitled "Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love", it did not directly endorse (or mention) BLM, condemned, and was voted against by three bishops; one other bishop abstained.[124][125][126]
USCCB President AbpJosé Gomez and Black Catholic BishopShelton J. Fabre (chairman of theUSCCB Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism) would both issueanti-racism statements in 2020 after themurder of George Floyd, amidst thesecond round of BLM protests. The BLM movement was again not endorsed.[127]
A joint statement in July 2020 from the NBSC, IBCS, NABCA, NBCCC, and theBowman-Francis Ministry directly supported the BLM movement.[128][129]
In early 2019, BishopRoy Campbell took over leadership of the NBCC.[130]
That same year, the Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta was named byPope Francis as Archbishop of Washington, considered by many to be the most important diocese in the country. He was the first African American to hold the post. The appointment was also notable in that archbishops of thatsee are typically namedcardinals, a position no African American has held.[131]
On October 25, 2020, Pope Francis announced that he would indeed name Gregory a cardinal at aconsistory scheduled for November 28, which made him the first African-American member of theCollege of Cardinals.[132] Following his retirement in 2025, only two African-American Catholic bishops remained active in the United States.
Following the trend of Catholic disaffiliation in the late 20th century, 2021 Pew Research study noted that just over half of Black American adults who were raised Catholic still remain in the Church.[14]
In 2025, Cardinal Robert Prevost was electedPope Leo XIV, hours before it was revealed that he is maternally descended fromBlack Creole Catholics in New Orleans. The mixed-race family of Leo's mother migrated to Chicago in the early 20th century and thereafter began to identify as White on thecensus.[133]
Generally speaking, Black Catholics hold to mainstream Catholic theology, often supplemented and enriched in various ways by beliefs common to theblack church. These usually include a palpable belief in the omnipresence and omnipotence of God in daily life struggles, a commitment to the justice of God in various social and political contexts, a strong sense of hope in the face of struggle, a spiritualization of various aspects of everyday experiences, the elevation of Christian faith as a bedrock of the community, and the conviction that worship unlocks the blessings of God.
The more formal academic classification known asBlack Catholic theology formally emerged within theBlack Catholic Movement of the late 1960s on through the 1990s. This new discipline coincided (and indeed collaborated) with the genesis ofblack theology, such that the former can be considered a subset of the latter.[134] At least one Black Catholic priest, FrLawrence Lucas, was involved with the latter movement even from its earliest days.[88]
Due to this kind of interplay, Black Catholic theology takes many cues from liberation theology and from the (predominantly Protestant) black (liberation) theology movement, especially the latter's emphasis on the African-American struggle and how it relates to the story and liberating message of the Bible and of Jesus Christ.[134]
Womanism, the theological movement led by and focusing on the perspectives of black women, is also an important aspect of Black Catholic theology, as many or most of the formal Black Catholic theologians have been women associated with that movement and its theories, including Drs.M. Shawn Copeland,Diana L. Hayes, andC. Vanessa White.[134][135][136]
A number of prominent Black Catholic theologians, including Drs. Hayes, Copeland, Craig A Ford Jr., and Fr Bryan Massingale have been accused ofmagisterial dissent (especially on topics related to theLGBT community), and there is evidence of such in some of their writings.[137][138][139][140][141][142][143][144][145][146]
Black Catholic worship consists of the Roman Rite Mass, like most any other Catholic group in America, but tends to use black Gospel hymns and/or style for the propers (Entrance,Responsorial,Alleluia,Offertory,Communion, Post-communion, andRecessional), ordinaries (Kyrie,Gloria,Sanctus, andAgnus Dei), and theOur Father. In some black parishes, the traditional form of a given hymn may be forgone altogether in favor of an equivalent gospel tune (e.g., "Hallelujah, Salvation And Glory" for the Alleluia, a gospel-ized "Holy, Holy, Holy" for the Sanctus, etc.).[147][148]
While in most American parishes, Daily Mass (held on weekdays and before 4 pm on Saturdays) involves no singing, some black parishes use at least some singing (such as the Communion hymn) in such liturgies.
The late 1980s brought the release of "Lead Me, Guide Me", the first and only Black Catholic hymnal, including numerous songs from the black Christian tradition as well as some Catholic hymns. The second edition was published byGIA in 2012. (Many black parishes opt for non-hymnal gospel selections, however.)
Some black parishes (e.g.,St. Augustine andOur Lady of Guadalupe in New Orleans) celebrate "GospelJazz Mass" every Sunday, integrating not only gospel but also the other major form of indigenous(black) American music—which is in fact derived from gospel itself.[149][150]
TheArchdioceses of San Francisco celebrated an annual Gospel Jazz Mass at theircathedral (with music performed by a mass choir from multiple historically black parishes in the area).[151] TheDiocese of San Jose celebrates a similar liturgy at their cathedral during the city's annualjazz festival,[152] as doesVacaville's St. Mary's Catholic Church during theirs.[153]
Another black Protestant tradition now seen in many Black Catholic parishes is that of dance. This includes "praise dancing", an individual or group-based choreographedliturgical dance performed to the tune of popular gospel songs.[154]
Some Black Catholic liturgies even feature"praise breaks"/"shouts", an unchoreographed form liturgical dance done in conjunction with fast-paced (and often improvised) instrumental gospel music;[155] Historic St. Francis Xavier Church in Baltimore claims to be the first to have integrated this form of worship.
While Catholichomilies are known for their brevity (relative to Protestantsermons), messages given at black parishes tend to be lengthier and even more emotive—not unlike their black Protestant equivalents, which are known to be the lengthiest among American Christian groups.[156] This is often seen with Black Catholic ministers who were themselves raised in the black Christian tradition (be it Catholic or Protestant) or otherwise disposed tothis style of preaching.[157]
Gospel Mass is a de facto form of theRoman Rite Mass, but currently has no official canonical designation by the Church. As such, theZaire Use—the only inculturated form of theNovus Ordo introduced since Vatican II—has gained popularity with some black parishes as a supplement to the extant Gospel Mass form (in lieu of an official African-American rite, a topic not broached since the early 90s).
Also somewhat unique within American Catholicism is the emphasis on prayer among Black Catholics. While this often involves more traditional rote prayers such as the Rosary or other Catholic devotions, the Black Catholic Movement brought about the more common use of relatively lengthy extemporaneous prayers, both during and outside of liturgical celebrations.[158]
The movement also brought about rote prayers specific to the black experience, including a number of prayer books.[159][160]
There are about 1.76 million US- or Caribbean-born Black Catholics in America.[161] They are largely centered in the major metro areas of the country. New York—the most populous US city—also has the most Black Catholics, followed (in no particular order) by Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, New Orleans, Oakland, Baltimore, and the D.C. metro area.
The United States is said to have approximately 250 non-immigrant Black Catholic priests.[162]
While there is no official hierarchy specific to Black Catholicism, the various organizations and conferences associated with it are seen as leadership outlets.
Black & Catholic (open membership)Black Catholic Fellowship (black-only)
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Several Black Catholics have open causes for canonization:
Activists[edit]
Artists[edit] | Educators[edit]
Firsts[edit] | Athletes and coaches[edit]
Jurists[edit]Politicians[edit] | Philanthropists[edit]Media figures[edit]
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There is a longstanding tradition of cooperation and coordination between Black Catholic and other black Christian traditions, at a variety of levels—especially during and since the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, which brought Black Catholic figures of note in direct contact and collaboration with the non-Catholic black leaders of said movements. Black Catholics of all stripes have, as members of the larger black community, participated in unifying moments of solidarity for the sake of black social uplift.[8][71]
The Rev. Jesse Jackson has featured heavily in these interactions, and both he andNation of Islam leaderLouis Farrakhan have collaborated with Chicago's Black Catholics on a number of occasions—quite controversially in the case of Farrakhan.[163]
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