From the Archives
By Mary Woodward

JACKSON – A few weeks ago on Dec. 30, we marked what would have been Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA’s 86th birthday. One of the towering figures in modern Catholicism in America, Sister Thea, the granddaughter of slaves, was born in Yazoo City in 1937.

Her parents enrolled her in Catholic school at Holy Child Jesus in Canton, which was staffed by Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration of LaCrosse, Wisconsin. She decided at age nine to become Catholic and then entered the convent at the age of 15.

Sister Thea faced many trials and challenges as the only African American in the novitiate, but she persevered and later after a few years of teaching earned a doctorate in literature from the Catholic University of America.

Gifted with a brilliant mind, beautiful voice and a dynamic personality, Sister Thea shared the message of African American spirituality and intercultural dynamics throughout the country.
“The common denominator in all my presentations was cross-cultural communications,” she once remarked. “We have different ways of thinking and praying and singing and dancing and relating and living. Our diversity is our greatest gift. Our diversity is a source of enrichment for our world, our church, our society and our country.”

In 1979, she returned to the Diocese of Jackson to be closer to her aging parents and to become consultant for intercultural awareness in the diocese. She continued to be a highly sought after speaker and often scheduled 100 or more presentations a year on spirituality, worship and prayer.

Her presentations were lively gatherings that combined singing, gospel preaching, prayer and storytelling. Her programs were directed to break down racial and cultural barriers.

Sister Thea was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1984. She continued to travel and speak though her schedule was greatly cutback.

In 1989, Sister Thea, in one of her last major appearances, addressed the U.S. bishops gathered for their spring meeting. At the meeting she spoke of what it was like to be Black and Catholic in America at that time. In the midst of her talk, she broke forth in song as she was known to do, this time capturing the tone of her talk in an old, familiar spiritual: “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child … sometimes I feel like an eagle in the air….” By the end of the session, she had the bishops joined hand in hand, swaying in a rousing version of “We Shall Overcome.”

Sister Thea died at her home in Canton on March 30, 1990. Her funeral Mass was celebrated at St. Mary Church in Jackson before a standing room only congregation of friends and admirers from around the world.

For those who knew her or worked with her or were around her for even a short time, she was a great inspiration. She will always be remembered for her great commitment to justice, hope and peace and for her work within the church to open it up to the gifts of African American spirituality and diversity for all. Sister Thea was a tireless child of God who loved the Lord Jesus, his people and his church.

On Nov. 18, 2018, Bishop Joseph Kopacz officially opened the cause for the beatification and canonization of Sister Thea Bishop’s edict was read to the faithful in the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle during the Sunday liturgy.

Having received the nihil obstat from the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints and gotten approval from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at the November 2018 plenary meeting in Baltimore, the cause opened the diocesan phase of the intricate canonical process leading to possible beatification.

During this phase, the Servant of God’s (this is the title she now carries) writings, theology, biography is studied and documented by appointed experts. Many witnesses who knew her have been interviewed, but there are several more to complete. When the pandemic hit, travel and interviews stopped.

This year we are focused on tying up several loose ends and printing everything in triplicate so that it may be sent to Rome. We have enlisted the help of Msgr. Robert Sarno, a retired priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, who served in the Dicastery at the Vatican. Msgr. Sarno connected us with a new Roman postulator, Dr. Emanuele Spedicato, who is now guiding our team and getting these details into a manageable process for us.
When all is ready, Bishop Kopacz will lead a special liturgy in which the documents will be sealed and presented to the postulator to deliver to the dicastery. Once that is completed, the postulator will work with the dicastery to move the cause forward. At a certain point, once the cause is in Rome, the Holy Father may declare the Servant of God as Venerable – showing heroic virtue.

After Venerable, the next step is beatification, which requires a miracle. Examination of the miracle goes through a similar canonical process as the diocesan phase. If a miracle is proven and accepted, the Servant of God is put on the schedule for an official liturgy of beatification.

Please continue to pray for the cause and if you are so moved go to our diocesan website – www.jacksondiocese.org – and make a donation.

(Mary Woodward is Chancellor and Archivist for the Diocese of Jackson.)

From the Archives
By Mary Woodward
JACKSON – This article is a follow up to last issues focus on the Pearl Harbor anniversary and Bishop Gerow’s diary accounts of the POW camp in Panola County near Como. The subject of prisoner of war camps at Christmas is a little bizarre, but perhaps it is fitting to show how kindness and compassion can be central in the midst of a terrible time.

Throughout the history of our diocese, our clergy and religious have served as chaplains and angels of mercy to those on battlefields at home and abroad. Women Religious nursed Union and Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. Father Ghislain Boheme, founding pastor of St. Michael in Paulding, accompanied a group of men from the little town as they marched with Stonewall Jackson. Boheme succumbed to the harsh conditions and died on the side of the path in Virginia.

Father Hubert Spengler signed up for service in World War I, but fortunately he spent minimal time in the war to end all wars. Father Peter Quinn served as a chaplain in the European Theater in WWII. He received several battlefield citations for his pastoral heroism on and near the front lines in Germany.

Back home, the State of Mississippi became a housing site for Italian and German prisoners. The first of these came from the campaign in North Africa. Initially there were four main camps that housed several thousand POWs – Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Camp Clinton, Camp McCain near Grenada, and Camp Como mentioned above. Several smaller satellite camps and work details spawned from these. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History has loads of information on these camps.

From his 2001 article in Mississippi History Now entitled “German Prisoners of War in Mississippi, 1943-1946,” John Ray Skates describes the four camps in this way:

“Other major POW camps in Mississippi were established at Camp McCain near Grenada, Camp Como in the northern Delta, and Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg. The four base camps were large compounds designed to house large numbers of POWs. Camp McCain housed 7,700; Camp Clinton 3,400; and Camp Shelby housed 5,300. Camp Como originally held 3,800 Italian soldiers, but the Italians were soon moved out of Mississippi and replaced by a smaller number of Germans.”

In the previous column, the quotes from Bishop Gerow’s diary detailed his visit to Camp Como in 1943 to check on the Italian POWs. Bishop Gerow, who studied in Rome, would have been able to converse with the Italians. Among the POWs were not only officers and soldiers, but also four Italian Catholic priest chaplains.

The presence of so many Italian POWs caught the attention of the Holy See and Bishop Gerow received a letter from the Apostolic Delegate inquiring about the conditions of the camp. In a letter dated June 11, 1943, the Apostolic Delegate instructs Bishop Gerow to “see that these men have adequate religious ministration and whatever little comforts it may be possible to give them; and if the camp commander permits, that they be supplied with a radio phonograph, which the Apostolic Delegate will pay for and present in the name of the Holy Father.”

Bishop Gerow replied in a letter dated June 19, that Father Cletus Manon, who was based in Water Valley, has visited the camp and found the four chaplains among the prisoners. Father Manon supplied them with altar stones, vestments, wine and hosts, candles and all that was necessary for Mass.

In the fall of 1943, Father Emile Rotondo, a native Italian and pastor in Cleveland, began ministering to the POWs from Como who were being used to work in the fields in the Delta. On Oct. 4, Bishop Gerow wrote the Delegate asking for permission for Father Rotondo to celebrate three Masses so he might give “proper attention to the Italian prisoners of war at Camp Como who are now in Father Rotondo’s territory picking cotton.”

The Delegate replies in a letter dated Nov. 3, granting permission. He adds he is sending prayer books, holy cards, etc., for the prisoners and asks Bishop Gerow to get two radios for the POWs once again in the name of the Holy Father.

Not long after these letters were exchanged the Italian POWs were transferred out of Mississippi and the camps were used strictly to house Germans. Pastoral care did continue, but the unique Italian connection between Pope, Apostolic Delegate, Delta pastor and prisoners was lost.

Writing about POWs and war at Christmas seems quite odd – war with all its brutality and lack of humanity. In quoting these letters and diary accounts, I have tried to reflect how our local diocesan church responded to a unique situation during the violence of world war.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel… Let us pray for peace!

(Mary Woodward is Chancellor and Archivist for the Diocese of Jackson.)

By Mary Woodward
JACKSON – On Nov. 18, 2018, Bishop Joseph Kopacz officially opened the cause for the beatification and canonization of Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA, who died on March 30, 1990, at her family home in Canton. Bishop’s edict was read to the faithful in the Cathedral of Saint Peter the Apostle in Jackson during the Sunday liturgy.

Having received the nihil obstat from the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints and gotten approval from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at the November 2018 plenary meeting in Baltimore, the cause opened the diocesan phase of the intricate canonical process leading to possible beatification.

During this phase, the Servant of God’s (this is the title she now carries) writings, theology, biography is studied and documented by appointed experts. A tribunal consisting of an episcopal delegate, promoter of justice, and notary, interview witnesses who knew her and ministered with her.

The questionnaire for the witnesses is quite extensive – probing into the virtues and the faith, hope and love shown throughout her life from childhood to death. Those interviews must be transcribed and sent to the witness for any additional comments then a signature of approval for inclusion in the Canonical acts.

When the pandemic hit, all interviews stopped. We were about two-thirds of the way through the list of witnesses. We are now slowly regrouping and hope to complete the entire process by the end of next year. This will involve tying up several loose ends and printing everything in triplicate so that it may be sent to Rome.

When all is ready, Bishop Kopacz will lead a special liturgy in which the documents will be sealed and presented to the postulator to deliver to the dicastery. Once that is completed, the postulator will work with the dicastery to move the cause forward. At a certain point, once the cause is in Rome, The Holy Father may declare the Servant of God as Venerable – showing heroic virtue.

After Venerable, the next step is beatification and in order to be beatified there must be a miracle. Examination of the miracle goes through a similar canonical process as the diocesan phase. If a miracle is proven and accepted, the Servant of God is put on the schedule for an official liturgy of beatification.
The next step would be canonization and that requires a second miracle. That miracle would have to happen after the beatification. All-in-all, the Roman side of the process takes a long time.

In the meantime, Bishop Kopacz has commissioned a life-size bronze statue of the Servant of God by a well-known bronze sculptor from Saucier, Mary Davidson. The statue will be placed in the Cathedral until a shrine location can be developed. We will feature the statue project and its uniqueness in a future article.
As for now, we need many prayers for the cause, especially for those involved in working through the fine details of the diocesan phase.

We also can use donations to the cause as it does have several financial costs for travel, translations, experts and administration. Donations may be made to the Diocese of Jackson and sent to the Chancellor’s Office, 237 E. Amite Street, Jackson, MS 39201. Make sure you mark the donation for Sister Thea’s Cause.

To donate online or to learn more about the Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA, visit our website at https://www.jacksondiocese.org/thea-bowman. From this site you may watch the wonderful documentary on her life “Going Home Like a Shooting Star” and find a link to the cause’s official site with photos and tributes to her.

Presenting a cause for canonization is one of the noblest things a diocese can undertake as an official act of the church. It is exciting to know that over the next several months we are participating in this ancient tradition and moving forward in completing the diocesan phase of this esteemed process.

(Mary Woodward is Chancellor and Archivist for the Diocese of Jackson.)

In place of her “From the Archives” column, archivist and chancellor Mary Woodward requested to run this story from Gulf Pine Catholic on the centennial celebration of St. Augustine Seminary in honor of Black Catholic History Month.

By Terry Dickson

BAY ST. LOUIS – St. Augustine Seminary, the first seminary in the U.S. to train Black men for the priesthood, celebrated its centennial Oct. 29 with a special Mass on the seminary grounds.

Originally established by the Divine Word Missionaries as the Sacred Heart Preparatory Seminary in 1920 in the Mississippi Delta city of Greenville, the seminary relocated three years later to Bay St. Louis, located on the Gulf of Mexico between New Orleans and Biloxi.

On May 23, 1934, four men – Anthony Bourges, Maurice Rousseve, Francis Wade and Vincent Smith – were ordained to the priesthood at St. Augustine. Between its inception and closure in 1968, the seminary produced numerous priests, nine of whom later became bishops, including Joseph Bowers, SVD; Harold Perry, SVD; Carlos Lewis, SVD; Raymond Caesar, SVD; Joseph Francis, SVD; Curtis Guillory, SVD; Dominic Carmon, SVD; Leonard Olivier, SVD; and Terry Steib, SVD.

Bishop Steib, bishop-emeritus of Memphis, was principal celebrant of the Mass, which was concelebrated by 11 bishops, including Archbishops Thomas Rodi of Mobile; Gregory Aymond of New Orleans; Shelton Fabre of Louisville; Bishops Louis F. Kihneman III of Biloxi; Michael Duca of Baton Rouge; Douglas Deshotel of Lafayette; Anthony Taylor of Little Rock; and Guillory, bishop-emeritus of Beaumont.

“One hundred years ago on Sept. 16, 1923, the House Chronicle of St. Augustine Seminary described the formal opening day of the seminary as a ‘red-letter day in the annals of St. Augustine Mission House in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.’ It was the day of dedication of this new mission house and, in the history of the Catholic Church among the Colored people of America, the day of the of the opening of the portals of the first seminary for young men of their race with a vocation to the priesthood, a day that will be long remembered as an epoch-making forward step,” said Bishop Steib.

“Now, one hundred years later, today is another red-letter day because we are celebrating the centennial year of this seminary, 100 years of preparing young Black men for the priesthood right here at St. Augustine. It is indeed and has been an epoch-making time. We celebrate and we praise God for this epoch-making time. We give thanks for the St. Augustine Seminary, a building that stood majestically and tall for over 75 years, a building where high school seminarians lived and studied, where African American students were trained and formed as they discerned a call to be priests and Divine Word Missionaries, despite the odds. We celebrate proudly how many religious teachers dedicated their lives to educating and forming these young men, how many religious brothers and laity worked and ministered here on this sacred ground 25 to a 100 years ago despite the odds.”

Bishop Steib imagined that, if the minor seminary building were still standing erect and could speak, it would mention how proudly the hundreds of alumni who graduated from here moved on.
“If the oak trees and the pine trees and the magnolia trees that have weathered the storms and hurricanes of past centuries and are still growing, the tress that sheltered the students over the years and are still growing could speak, they would say, ‘Look at all the hundreds who graduated from here, all who went to the novitiate and took vows and were ordained here, look at the first African-American priests to be ordained here – Father Bourges, Father Rousseve, Father Smith and Father Wade. They stood tall in the midst of segregated times. They were the men who stood tall, who served the Lord in some trying times. These are men who are role models for us.”

“How thankful are we that St. Arnold Jannsen, founder of the Divine Word Missionaries, would take to heart his own desire to proclaim the Gospel where it was not yet viable and dare to train African Americans to make it possible. How thankful are we that the (Society of the Divine Word) continues to proclaim the Gospel by calling forth vocations from all nations to serve in this Southern province.”

Father Paulus Budi Kleden, superior general of the Society of the Divine Word who traveled from Rome to take part in the centennial celebration, said although the seminary “has lost its function as a center to train African American candidates for the priesthood, its legacy remains.”

“It is a permanent call to fight against all kinds of segregation and discrimination, which, like a virus, can quickly enter a person or group without being fully aware of it and affects our way of thinking, judging and acting,” he said.

“In this sense, celebrating the 100th anniversary of St. Augustine Seminary is a privileged moment for all the members of the SVD to recommit ourselves to live and promote interculturality, which is our heritage, commitment and mission. The seminary stands for the Society’s dedication to actively participate in the efforts to eradicate the discrimination of race, religion, nationality, culture, and sexual orientation. At the same time, it calls for all of us to remain firm and consistent in this mission,” Kleden concluded.

“I think a second point to that is that seminaries be more welcoming, but also be sensitive to the different cultures of the people entering the seminary,” said Bishop Curtis Guillory. “One of the many things that we learned here at Divine Word Seminary was, first of all, acceptance of our culture and to see the beauty and the contributions of that culture. With that, we were not only able to be in the midst of other cultures but also learn from them and they from us.”

(Terrance Dickson is communications director and editor of the Gulf Pine Catholic for the Diocese of Biloxi.)