Augustus Tolton
1854-1897 19th century
Quiet faithfulness under contempt, and the God-given dignity that no rejection can take away.
Who was Augustus Tolton?
Born into slavery in Missouri, as a child he escaped with his mother across the Mississippi River. Refused by every American seminary because of his color, he went to study in Rome and was ordained a priest in 1886, the first Black priest in the United States. Back in Quincy and later Chicago, he served a poor community amid hostility even from fellow priests, wearing himself out until his death at forty-three.
In their own words
The Catholic Church deplores a double slavery, that of the mind and that of the body. She endeavors to free us of both.
I was a poor slave boy, but the priests of the Church did not disdain me.