“What a beautiful day for a pilgrimage” remarked Price Olivier as he and his wife Doris joined 160 other pilgrims from Southeast Queens as they boarded buses to lower Manhattan to visit the sites associated with the life of the Venerable Pierre Toussaint.

Toussaint, who is credited as being the father of Catholic Charities in New York, was born a slave in Haiti and died a free man in New York City. He was also instrumental in raising funds for the first Catholic orphanage and began the city’s first school for black children. He used the funds he earned as a hairdresser to support others and care for the sick and the dying.

In 1968, Cardinal Terence Cooke introduced Toussaint’s cause for canonization to the Vatican.

The first stop for the pilgrims was St. Peter’s Church on Barclay Street, the oldest Catholic church in New York State, where Toussaint worshipped daily, and where he was an usher. His funeral Mass also was held there.

At St. Peter’s, the pilgrims from Queens were met by Brother Tyrone Davis from the Archdiocesan Office of Black Ministry, who reminded them that many think of the black community as newcomers to Catholicism. But he explained that even before the Archdiocese of New York was established, Pierre Toussaint, a layman of color and a slave from Haiti, was spreading the Gospel and performing the corporal works of mercy.

From St. Peter’s, the pilgrims traveled to the Basilica of Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mott Street in Little Italy. Here, geneologist Jim Garrity greeted the pilgrims and showed them the church yard where Toussaint was originally buried and where his wife and adopted daughter are entombed. Garrity related that Toussaint was a generous benefactor to the building of the cathedral, even though he was denied a seat in the front of the church because he was a black man.

Mass was celebrated for the pilgrims by Father Freddy Washington, C.S.S.P., pastor of St. Mark the Evangelist Church, the first parish in Harlem that welcomed black Catholics.

In December, 1989, Cardinal John J. O’Connor had the remains of Toussaint transferred from Lower Manhattan to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown, where he is the only lay person entombed alongside the former cardinal-archbishops of New York. Brother Tyrone was able to arrange special permission for each of the pilgrims to enter the crypt and pray at the tomb of Venerable Pierre Toussaint.

The idea of the pilgrimage first surfaced at a meeting of the pastoral associates of the Queens deanery. Mary Doyle, pastoral associate at Christ the King, Springfield Gardens, made contact with the archdiocese and did the necessary research to make it possible.

“The cause of Venerable Pierre Toussaint is very dear to the hearts of the people of Southeast Queens who are united in prayer to see him canonized as North America’s first black saint,” said Sister Maryellen Kane, C.S.J., parish life coordinator at St. Mary Magdalene, Springfield Gardens.