“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17).
Once again, another Black History Month has begun. The announced national theme for the 2024 observance is “African Americans and the Arts,” a focus on African, Caribbean, and African American experiences in film, music, literature, fashion, architecture, visual and performing arts, and other forms of cultural expression.
But the start of another Black History Month also gives us another opportunity to notice — and celebrate — that black history and Catholic history have long been intertwined.
The connection has actually gone back centuries, to when three African popes — Pope Victor I, Pope Miltiades, and Pope Gelasius I — made significant contributions to the Catholic Church. Pope Victor, who served from 186-197, mandated that Easter always be celebrated on a Sunday. Pope Miltiades, who served from 311-314, negotiated with a Roman emperor to allow Christians to publicly profess their faith. Pope Gelasius, pope from 492- 496, faced down an aggressive emperor in Constantinople, who sought to control the Rome-based Church.
In 1829, women from a colony of Haitian refugees in Baltimore began to educate local children in their homes. With the support of the local archbishop, they formed a Catholic order of nuns called the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first religious order for black women. Its founding superior, Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, is a candidate for sainthood.
A few years later, in 1842, Henriette DeLille, a biracial free woman of African descent, helped found a second religious order, the Sisters of the Holy Family, an order that ministered to poor black residents. In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI declared DeLille venerable, on the path to sainthood.
In 1909, the Knights of Peter Claver, a group of lay black Catholics, was established as a parallel organization to the Knights of Columbus. The Knights of Peter Claver has since grown to become the largest African American lay Catholic organization in the U.S.
In the decades since, and into the 21st century, pope’s have officially placed Venerable Pierre Toussaint, Mother Mary Lange, Venerable Henriette DeLille, Father Augustus Tolton — the first priest of African descent in the U.S. — Julia Greeley and Sister Thea Bowman on the path to canonization as Catholic saints. All their causes on their behalf remain active.
And in 2020, Pope Francis elevated Wilton Daniel Gregory, who has served as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., since 2019, to be the first African American Cardinal.
However, Black History Month offers more than just a chance to look back at historic milestones and achievements of the past, rather, an opportunity to face and embrace the future.
Throughout Black History Month, a variety of concerts, art exhibits, symposiums, and cultural events will take place around the Diocese of Brooklyn and beyond, among them a Black History Month 2024 Art and Literary contest culminating on Sunday, Feb. 24, at St. Margaret Parish in Rosedale.
Meanwhile, there are those who feel that Black History Month events and celebrations should not be limited to the month of February, but rather observed year-round. In fact, the students and faculty at least one school in the diocese, Brooklyn Jesuit Prep in East Flatbush, do just that, having incorporated black artwork and literature into the fifth-through-eighth-graders’ curriculum throughout the school year.
