If you love history, you’re going to think Maria Mazzenga, Ph.D., has the best job in the world. As curator of American Catholic history collections at The Catholic University of America, she gets to examine artifacts close-up to learn about the past.
Raphael Civil, a student at St. John’s University, wasn’t aware of Black Catholic History Month until very recently but he became a quick study. After reading up on the subject, Civil stepped up to help school administrators organize the campus celebration.
The Mass was organized by a national campaign made up of members of three Baltimore parishes, St. Ann, St. Francis Xavier and St. Wenceslaus, as well as longtime members of St. Ann’s social justice committee. The purpose was to create awareness and educate the American people about the stories of these six candidates for sainthood.
Deacon Art Miller, a cradle Catholic whose grandparents moved from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to the South Side of Chicago, grew up in a segregated society during the 1950s.
The Gospel choir-like singing strikes people as out of place in a Catholic church, and liturgical dance is unfamiliar to many. But Wilson said the groups that led the faithful in worship at the Diocese of Brooklyn’s National Black Catholic History Month Mass at St. Therese of Lisieux, Flatbush, on Nov. 17 are indeed Catholic.
