Thank you so much for this article.  My son and daughter are  both black and
are Catholic.  It hurt me to see so few black Catholics in our city the
perish in which my daughter was born had to be closed because there were so
few attendees.  It was in the inner city and I do think it was closed
because the nun which was the only nun in the convent at the end died.  I
think it would have a lot sooner if not for her being there and helping
those in the area both catholic and non Catholics.
----- Original Message -----
From: Katherine Schulz
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2006 9:42 PM
Subject: [romancatholicchat] The Former Slave Proposed as an American Saint


The Former Slave Proposed as an American Saint

03/09/06

Only a few decades ago, black Catholics in some parts of America had to
stand at the end of the line for Holy Communion - a travesty of the
sacrament meant
to make us all one in Christ. Jesus Himself provides the rebuke: "The first
shall be last, and the last shall be first."

In This Article...
Early Keys to Success
Provider and Protector
Intellect, Character and Faith

 Early Keys to Success

So it is fitting that on the short list of Americans who have been proposed
for sainthood is a black New Yorker, Pierre Toussaint (1766-1853), a freed
slave
who, because of his race, was forbidden to ride the city's omnibuses. Born
in the French colony that is now Haiti, he was taken to New York at age 22
by
his prosperous masters, Jean Jacques and Marie Elisabeth Bérard, who feared
racial unrest on the island. (Indeed, the tension would soon erupt in a
bloody
slave revolt that wiped out most of the island's white population.) The
Bérard family had raised the young man in their own home, appointing their
daughter,
Aurora, as his godmother. Since he served in their household, they taught
him to read and write.

In New York, they arranged for him to learn from the city's leading
hairdresser the art of styling women's hair in the intricate, Marie
Antoinette-style
pompadours and ringlets that were the rage at the end of the 18th century.
The hairdressing trade was a lucrative one; wealthy women often spent over
$1,000
per year on their hair - a princely sum in 1788. This meant that in time
left over from serving the Bérards, Toussaint could earn money for himself.
Many
slaves bought their freedom this way, but Toussaint chose instead to
purchase liberty from the Bérards for his sister, Rosalie, whom he furnished
with
a dowry. He had already used his earnings to free a young woman named
Juliette Noel, who in 1811 became his wife.

Provider and Protector

Having fled their island and estates, the Bérards were no longer rich. In
1801, Jean Jacques returned to Haiti in a futile attempt to recover his
estates.
There he came down with pleurisy and died. Marie found herself almost
destitute. Toussaint volunteered to ply his hairdressing skills on her
behalf among
her wealthy friends. And this he did, travelling to the fashionable homes of
New York City, usually working 16 hours a day. He quietly paid the household
bills - effectively serving as provider and protector to the woman who
legally owned him.

When Marie sent him off to sell her jewelry so she could pay a debt, he
returned with both the money and the jewels, informing her he would pay the
debt
himself. He even took delight in helping her maintain some of the luxuries
she had formerly enjoyed, making sure that she was able to keep fresh fruit
in the house and providing her with a new delicacy called "ice cream." When
she got depressed, he persuaded her to host parties to raise her spirits.
Even
after she remarried, Toussaint remained the main breadwinner in the
household. As her health failed, Marie made provisions to give him his
freedom, which
became official on July 2, 1807. She died soon after that, but Toussaint
continued to help support her surviving second husband.

Scrupulously careful with money, Toussaint saved every penny he could, much
of which he gave to charity, especially to slaves seeking freedom, former
slaves
in need, New York's first Catholic school for black children, and
newly-founded religious orders for black Catholics such as the Oblate
Sisters of Providence.
Pierre and Juliette could have no children of their own, but when Pierre's
sister Rosalie died, they adopted her daughter Euphemia as their own, taking
her into the Bérard home.

While a slave and later as a free man, Toussaint helped slaves and former
slaves obtain education and enter professions. He also became a key member
of
St. Peter's parish, a church near Wall Street that still stands today.
Although he suffered from discrimination - a white usher once haughtily
ordered
him out of the church during Mass - Toussaint believed that the parish was
his as much as any white man's. So when a fire devastated the building he
helped
lead the effort (and provided a good part of the funds) to rebuild it in
1836. When the time came to build what is now called Old St. Patrick's
Cathedral
on Mulberry Street, Toussaint gave generously. (He would someday be buried
at that church, and later moved to the new St. Patrick's on Fifth Avenue,
where
he rests today.) In an epidemic of yellow fever (probably in 1803),
Toussaint risked his life to nurse the sick after most doctors had fled the
city.

Intellect, Character and Faith

For Pierre Toussaint, faith was the very air he breathed. According to the
document compiled by Rev. William Elder of the New York Archdiocese for his
proposed
canonization, Toussaint attended Mass almost every day of his adult life. He
got special permission as a layman to receive Holy Communion weekly, though
that was not customary at the time. Although he was doubly stigmatized as a
slave and a Catholic in white Protestant New York, Toussaint's intellect and
character broke down those barriers. He became renowned for his patient
explanations of Catholic doctrine and practices to suspicious non-Catholics.
Once,
when he was asked by a Protestant friend why he venerated pictures of the
Virgin Mary, he pointed to a portrait of his friend's mother hanging on the
wall:
"You like to look at this. It makes you think of her, love her more, try to
do what she likes you to do." He explained that it was the same with Mary,
everyone's mother.

Toussaint always referred to God as "my heavenly Father," and he spoke often
to his friends about how much he trusted in Him. That trust would be tested
in the greatest griefs of his life - in 1832, when Euphemia died of
tuberculosis at age 15, and later in 1851, when Juliette died of cancer.

His goodness was so obvious to those who came into contact with him that
several upper-class white New Yorkers remembered him after his death as the
"most
perfect gentleman" they had ever met. Protestant and Catholic, they crowded
his 1853 funeral at St. Peter's church - although in deference to his
wishes,
only his fellow black Catholics followed his coffin.

The documents proposing Pierre Toussaint's canonization now lie in the
Vatican awaiting the two miracles needed to make him officially a saint. But
the
account of his life in those papers makes it clear why many regard his
canonization as inevitable: "Even though he lived in a time of prejudice
against
both Catholics and blacks, he bore public witness to the faith. He did so
quietly, in a way that sprang naturally from the deep resources of his
hidden
spiritual life."

John Zmirak is author of
www.badcatholics.com
The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living.