April 24: From Slave to Priest

Welcome to the American Catholic Daily Reader podcast. Today is April 24th, and our story is From Slave to Priest. On July 17, 1886, the pews of St. Boniface Church in Quincy, Illinois, were packed with white and black Catholics alike.

Together, ignoring racial differences, they knelt to receive the blessing of their town's newest priest, a local boy ordained in Rome who had arrived back earlier that day. The priest was Father John Augustine, or Augustus, Tolton, the first avowedly African-American priest of the United States. Born in 1854 to two Missouri slaves, Tolton escaped to freedom with his mother and siblings in 1862.

The family then settled in Quincy, where the local priest, Father Peter McGeer, befriended the boy and, despite protests from many parents, enrolled him in St. Peter's Parish School. Not long afterward, Tolton, who had been baptized Catholic as a baby, received his first communion and began serving 5 a.m. Mass for Father McGeer. One day after Mass, McGeer told Tolton that he would make a fine priest.

Tolton immediately responded, Let us go to the church and pray for my success. Discerning his vocation, however, proved easier than pursuing it. Despite the support of the local priests, Tolton couldn't find a seminary in the country that would admit him. It took years of searching and praying before McGeer finally convinced a seminary in Rome to take on the young man. Tolton left for the Eternal City in 1880, and six years later, on April 24, 1886, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood at St.

John Lateran Basilica in Rome. He expected to go to Africa to serve as a missionary, but instead, the church asked him to return to Quincy. Father Tolton remained in Quincy until 1889, when the Archbishop of Chicago requested that he come north to serve the city's Black Catholics, who were building the first Catholic church in the country constructed exclusively for African Americans, St. Monica's Catholic Church. Tolton agreed, pastoring St. Monica's until his unexpected death from sunstroke in 1897. He was 43. His cause for canonization opened in 2011, and Pope Francis declared him venerable on June 12, 2019.

Tolton's unwavering commitment to his vocation reminds us that obstacles are not walls, but opportunities for perseverance. His example challenges us to pursue God's call courageously, even when society or circumstance discourages us. Reflect on a challenge that feels insurmountable. How can you trust God in the difficulties?

Thank you for listening to the American Catholic Daily Reader Podcast. Join us tomorrow, April 25th, for another story of faith and courage in America.