Summoned by the Holy Spirit:
A Call to New Life

By Michael Wamble
STAFF WRITER

First, there was the beat of the African drum; then the dance began.

Dancers from Danny Diallo Hinds and Sundance Production enter the gymnasium of DeLaSalle Institute Nov. 3 at the start of the prayer service. CNW photos by David V. Kamba

Bare black feet bounded down the center aisle, as gourds and dried horsetails shook, and arms were raised toward the heavens above. Four young women adorned in white received both smiles and curious glances from the crowd.

As a biographical litany of figures of black Catholics in the United States was recited, the 1,600 parishioners and pastoral ministers opened the first night of Black Catholic Convocation 2000, held Nov. 3-4 at DeLaSalle Institute, proclaimed, “Ashe!,” the Swahili term for “we agree.”

In this litany, the recently canonized St. Katherine Drexel and St. Josephine Bakhita, clasped the outstretched hands of Father Augustus Tolton, the first recognized black Catholic priest in the U.S., who served in the Chicago Archdiocese, as Deacon Morris Bohannon, poured libations into the gourd in remembrance of their contributions.

The first steps of this dance were celebratory—Afrocentric and Gospel-centered, incorporating old-time black spirituals and personal testimonies.

What followed next was a bit more choreographed. It was a process in which delegates from parishes with a predominantly black Catholic population voted on structural changes in those parishes and schools. It was a “dance” requiring delicate steps around mentions of mergers and clusters.

While specifics of those changes must be detailed, then approved by Cardinal George, a process without a definitive timetable, one thing is certain for black Catholics in Chicago: the beat goes on.

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Merge, cluster or keep the status quo?

DeLaSalle Institute, site of this first-ever Black Catholic Convocation, stands but two blocks away from the original site of St. Monica Church, Chicago’s first black Catholic church. This Christian Brothers’ school is located in the Bronzeville neighborhood, a near South Side area in the midst of financial and structural redevelopment.

“I am grateful to you for your life of faith,” Cardinal George tells more than 1,600 black Catholics gathered at the Black Catholic Convocation Nov. 3.

Beneath the convocation’s colorful cultural trappings—the sashes of red, black and green, the Gospel music and references to Nguzo Saba, the seven principles of Kwanzaa—the two-day event focused on the need for change within the black Catholic community.

When black Catholics inherited dozens of large churches as a result of “white flight,” they received infrastructure nightmares. There were, among others, increasing maintenance costs of parishes and a lack of resources, both personnel and financial.

“If you have a church built for 1,000 people and you have 200 people there, the winter heating bill will be something else. It can be a tremendous drain on a parish,” said Joyce Gillie, a member of the convocation’s steering committee and pastoral coordinator of St. Peter Claver Mission, Robbins.

Daughter of the Heart of Mary Sister Anita Baird, archdiocesan director of the Office for Racial Justice, put it more succinctly: “It’s difficult to evangelize when you’re working to pay the light and gas bills.”

That was a reality understood from the beginning by those who planned the event. The question has always been who would initiate a change.

Would it be the Archdiocese of Chicago dictating what should be done? Or would it be an opportunity for black parishes, through their delegates, to exercise kujichagulia (self-determination)?

The message sent by the archdiocese was black parishes would be given a historic moment to determine their future.

During his homily at the convocation Mass, Cardinal George speaks about the need to become “actors” and “agents of change” in the life of the local church.

In his convocation Mass homily, Cardinal George assured participants that he would await their decision. “There is no hidden agenda,” he said, calling on black Catholics present to be “agents of change in this local church.”

Those comments were echoed by Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry. “Let me say here, as the cardinal did earlier, that there is no preconceived plan before we start tomorrow, for which this convocation would be an exercise in foolishness,” said Bishop Perry in his address.

“Nothing has been put down on paper. Nothing has been decided upon. You, brothers and sisters, are asked your opinion on matters of church. We shall take your recommendations to the table in hopes that some plan for the future can be etched to the benefit of the entire church and the glory of God. This represents just a beginning,” he said.

In a statement, steering committee member Joan Neal said, “At the parish level, we can begin work now to implement recommendations on evangelization, tithing and vocations.”

Bishop Perry offered delegates three options. They included a “re-mapping of parishes that combines resources and personnel,” or clustering parishes so those with “small memberships would exist under a team of priests, deacons, religious, and lay ecclesial ministers.” The third choice would give delegates the option to “maintain the current configuration of parishes, with each independently responsible for their own future.”

Given the rocky history of closures and mergers, some found the choices hard to accept, saying they felt “singled out and insulted” that these decisions were only being asked of black Catholics, and not white-ethnic Catholics or the archdiocese as a whole.

Baird said, during a series of interviews with steering committee members, that she believed other groups will form similar convocations. “Our brothers and sisters in the Hispanic community, as well as in the Polish community, are looking at this [convocation],” she said.

Other delegates were visibly angered by the thought of re-mapping, fearing this might send black Catholics into vibrant mega-parishes, especially on the city’s South Side.

Joseph Taliaferro of St. Gelasius, formed in 1990 from mergers, said a larger number of African-American priests could have prevented these limited options.

“If we had more black priests, we wouldn’t be discussing this today. We’d probably be talking about how to build more parishes,” said Taliaferro.

The future of parish schools brought strong comments from Father John Calicott, pastor of Holy Angels, home of the largest black Catholic school in the nation.

“Every school in the archdiocese receives some form of subsidies in some way. Let’s set that straight,” he said, questioning if parish schools are providing the education “we say we are,” describing religious formation programs in many locations as “woefully inadequate today.” The South Side pastor said more training, more personnel, more materials and more money could address this problem.

Summarizing the “very, very sensitive” history of Catholic schools in Chicago, Calicott noted the number of black Catholic converts produced by those institutions. “And I am proud to say that I am one of them,” he said.

Listing changes that have affected these schools—the absence of women religious, who worked for “slave wages,” the end of segregated housing in the city, and the once “inferior” status of local public schools—the priest wondered if the Catholic school model used in the black community for decades was still relevant.

As of June 1999, there were 19,909 black students in archdiocesan elementary schools. While 5,093 were Catholic, 14,816 were non-Catholic. In Catholic high schools, there were 3,914 black students, nearly a quarter of all students.

Delegates were asked if they felt they should support parish schools including those “with a majority non-Catholic student enrollment,” or “retain only those schools with majority Catholic student enrollment and close all others” or “get out of the school business completely since schools simply drain our resources.”

Many parish delegates, like Alice Matthews, wouldn’t consider the last option. Regardless of the numbers, said Matthews at her table, “We have to be in the school business.” She said that religious instruction must be a priority.

Also to be considered is the desire of many educators and parishioners to return to “old-school” values and criteria once present when black Catholic schools were at their apex. At their peak, Catholic schools provided the first step toward Catholic conversion for Calicott, Baird and other black Catholics. To attend a Catholic school the child, and at least one parent, had to take religious instruction classes.

“Parents aren’t aware of this history,” said Claire Williams of St. Benedict the African-East, a public school Head Start educator. “Let’s go back to the old days.”

But it was the future that was on the minds of many present. One delegate, asking to be anonymous, said: “We must face reality. We can’t keep beautiful old buildings open where there is a declining enrollment.”

The crisis state of Catholic schools is not unique to Chicago, said Baird. Neither, she said, is the black Catholic community’s duty to fulfill their mission, especially given the number of leaders, both Catholic and non-Catholic, these school have produced.

Said Baird, “We have an obligation to look at ways of being able to ensure Catholic education will continue to be viable in this archdiocese. We have to make sure that they not only survive, but that they flourish.”



Wanted: Black priests!

Two issues that brought Bernita Johnson, a delegate from St. Ailbe Parish, to the convocation were the broader issue of “the future of churches in our community” and a more narrowly-defined call.

“An important issue is trying to get our young black men interested in becoming priests … again,” said Johnson. “I think that is part of our problem, so it can be part of our solution.”

Lively discussions throughout the convocation often touched on the declining numbers of black vocations.

Even proposals to re-map parish boundaries and reconfigure parish schools were held together, at least for many delegates, by the common linchpin of where the local church’s precious commodity of black priests might be assigned. It was an oft-repeated call for more black priests—or just one black priest—at their parish.

But where do black priests come from within the Chicago Archdiocese, if not from its seminary system?

The reasons for lack of locally-fostered black vocations given by Bishop Perry are four-fold. They include: a history of exclusion; the size of Chicago’s black Catholic population; societal changes in black families; and the rise of a black middle-class.

“When you talk to kids and ask them what they want to be it is always something with a fat, juicy salary attached to it. Or their parents are prodding them in that direction,” said the bishop.

Presently eight of the 43 predominantly black parishes are headed by black pastors. There are 11 additional African or African-American priests ministering within these parishes.

“White priests are fine,” said Johnson. “We have some wonderful, great priests, like our [St. Ailbe] priest. Father John Breslin is a godsend. We love him dearly. And he is also interested as to how we can get young brothers to look at the priesthood.”

She said, “Maybe if we can accomplish this, we can bring more of our people out of these Protestant churches and back into the [Catholic] church.

“If black priests were here they could help us ‘save’ our churches, ‘save’ our schools. But they are not here.”

Historically, from Father Rollins Lambert, the first black Catholic priest ordained for Chicago in 1949, to former students of Archbishop Quigley, the archdiocesan seminary system has been less than welcoming to black candidates.

If the seminary system suddenly had 43 candidates, would that system be able to nurture those young men and address their cultural differences and needs? That question received different responses.

“Yes,” answered Bishop Perry.

Sheila Adams, archdiocesan director of African-American Ministry, agreed, adding that changes would have to occur.

“I think work could be done culturally if they [local seminary institutions] knew they would receive 43 African-American men,” said Adams. “If that means they need outside speakers, which we have here, with the bishop, and a few black priests who could come in, along with members of the laity. It could happen.”

While there are over 20 men of African descent in the Chicago seminary system, the majority are from Africa and will likely return there after their ordination, said Bishop Perry.

Deacon Frederick Mason, an assistant to Bishop Perry, gave a different answer.

“Not to contradict the bishop, but I’d have to say ‘No,’” said Mason. “I went to school with guys who entered the seminary and many came out because the seminary wasn’t culturally equipped. We tried to give them input in terms of developing programming and an atmosphere conducive for black seminarians.

“We don’t want to separate them [black seminarians] out, but we want to provide a multicultural experience which works with them. I’m talking about black Americans. You have Africans in the seminary but in terms of African-Americans, we are few and far between,” said Mason. “The diocesan system has been a bad system for most black men. Most of the men who have expressed interest in vocations have entered religious communities.”

Many vocational calls begin prior to one’s teen and young adult years.

For William Hall, a teen delegate representing DeLaSalle, that vocation call has been put on hold.

The DeLaSalle junior began his secondary education at Quigley. What is needed to increase vocations, said Hall, is a clarification of what it means to have a vocation. He said that a lack of discipline, coupled with culture shock, were factors that hastened his exit from Quigley. Within the last couple years, Hall said suggestions and input from the student group United Black Seminarians (UBS), have begun to be heard again.

Hall, who remains in contact with UBS members, hasn’t given up on his interest in the priesthood.

“Even though I don’t currently attend Quigley Seminary, I still feel God’s call. Though I had a bad experience there I haven’t said ‘No’ to the priesthood,” he said.

After a presentation on vocations, Quigley president and St. Ambrose pastor Father David Jones, an African-American priest, said a high school senior approached him wanting to learn more about how he could pursue the priesthood.

“He said he never felt that way before but it felt like he was being called,” said Jones. The archdiocese could improve the way it invites and nurtures black vocations, he said.

“We ask people now, ‘Do you want to be a priest?’ but instead of asking we need to point out, especially to young people, that we need priests. And we need them because the black community should contribute members of our own community to not only serve in our parishes, but also in other parishes throughout the archdiocese,” said the priest.

The hopes of Jones and numerous convocation delegates is that the “maybes” expressed by Hall and others can be transformed into “Yes, Lord.” y