By Priscila González de Doran
BALTIMORE (CNS) – When Sister Rita Michelle Proctor was a young child, she was taught by the Oblate Sisters of Providence from grades three to 10.

The sisters’ hospitality and trust in Divine Providence inspired her to become a religious sister in their Baltimore-based order.

After 53 years of love and service for the Lord in the Oblate community, the current superior general of her religious community was honored to participate at St. Ann Church in Baltimore in a Nov. 1 procession of six candidates for canonization.

She held a portrait of the community’s foundress – and one of those sainthood candidates: Mother Mary Lange, who has the title “Servant of God.”

Five other members of the African American Catholic community processed to the altar holding portraits of the other prominent Black Catholics they hope will be canonized.

They are: Sister Thea Bowman, the first African American member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, and Julia Greeley, known as the city of Denver’s “Angel of Charity” – both have the title Servant of God – as well as Mother Henriette Delille, founder of the Sisters of the Holy Family, Father Augustus Tolton and Pierre Toussaint. The latter three have the title “Venerable.

The title “Servant of God” is given by the church to a sainthood candidate when his or her cause is officially opened.

The first step in the process after that is the declaration of a person’s heroic virtues, after which the church bestows the title “Venerable.” The second step is beatification, after which he or she is called “Blessed.” The third step is canonization.

In general, for beatification one miracle needs to be accepted by the church as having occurred through the intercession of the prospective saint and a second such verified miracle is needed for canonization.

Following the procession, Auxiliary Bishop Bruce A. Lewandowski of Baltimore, the archdiocese’s urban vicar, celebrated a Mass for the feast of All Saints. Nearly 200 people were present.

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.

Members of the campaign are collecting signatures in a letter to Pope Francis asking him to expedite their canonization.

“While there are no U.S. African American saints, there are 11 white Americans who have been canonized,” the letter said. “We know there is a process, but it is not working for Black American Catholics and supporters. The process is reaping unfair, uneven results, especially when you realize that the six Black saints have been waiting 714 years totally if you add up the times since each died.”

Toussaint died 168 years ago, and a few of the others have been deceased for more than a century. Sister Bowman is the most contemporary, having died in 1990.

The letter asked the pope to canonize the six candidates “immediately.” “If not now, when?” it said. “If not you, who?”

Delores Moore, one of the leaders of the national campaign, a member of St. Ann’s social justice committee and a parishioner there, said the campaign started when parishioners serving the African American community realized only a few people knew about the lives of these African American holy men and women, who despite their struggles with systemic racism, remained loyal to God.

Father Donald Sterling, the first African American priest ordained in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and pastor of New All Saints in Liberty Heights, carried the portrait of Father Tolton, first African American diocesan priest in the United States.

“Besides being historical, it is humbling to think that in all these years I am the first African American priest in the Archdiocese of Baltimore,” Father Sterling said. “It is a humbling call on God’s part.”

Many present knew Sister Bowman, including Father Sterling and Therese Wilson Favors, a longtime Catholic educator and former director of the Baltimore archdiocesan Office of Black Catholic Ministries, who carried the portrait of her friend and co-worker.

Wilhelmena Braswell, a St. Ann parishioner, met Sister Bowman in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in downtown Baltimore and said “her presence would light up the room.”

Bishop Lewandowski said that in the church there are saints for every community and every person, but not in the case of the African American community.

He invited the congregation to share with everyone the stories of these future saints, to make sure their parishes display pictures of them and to ask for their intercession.

The bishop said it is important to have Masses to celebrate African American saints because the faithful identify with saints who “look like us, spoke our language, lived our experiences and can understand our struggles.”

Although the process of canonization can be long and tedious, Bishop Lewandowski encouraged the congregation by reminding them, “We don’t make saints; God does.”

(González de Doran writes for the Catholic Review, the news outlet of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.)

By Kathleen Merritt for The Catholic Miscellany

During November, Black Catholics across the country will tell stories, sing from our “Lead Me Guide Me” hymnals and praise God in thanksgiving. The many acts of significance our ancestors put forth in the name of Black spirituality and creating a place for Black Catholics in the church are a cause for joy and celebration.

Father Michael Okere, vicar for Black Catholics, said this month “calls us to rejoice for all the huddles our ancestors went through to sustain their faith in the Catholic Church. Also, it calls us to rejoice in hope as we practice our faith in deep spirituality, and to leave a strong Catholic faith legacy for the generations that will come after us.”

According to demographics found on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) African American Demographics page, there are 3 million African American Catholics, 250 priests, 437 deacons, 75 in seminary formation for the priesthood, 400 religious sisters and 59 religious brothers.

The diocesan Office of Black Catholics frequently celebrates the history of our African American parishioners. They have persevered through the centuries, remaining true to the mission of evangelizing Black Catholics. It is the passing on of these stories to our youth, from generation to generation, that serve as one of our best resources. Families are the center of the church, and Black Catholic History Month celebrates our families in many ways.

There are no Black saints from the United States, which is why there is a strong movement for six African Americans on the road to sainthood today. Imagine the impact on youth that the sharing of the story of faith and perseverance of our first known African American priest, Venerable Father Augustus Tolton, can have.

If you’ve never heard a speech by Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, please go to YouTube, search her name and listen. The talk she delivered to the USCCB in 1989 on Black spirituality was so powerful that all the bishops stood up, joined hands and engaged in singing and swaying to a Negro spiritual, with her leading the song. Sister Thea is among the African American candidates for sainthood.

Many in our diocese remember meeting Sister Thea when she visited and facilitated retreats on Black spirituality. The most enlightening thing about her visit to South Carolina is that there are some people alive today who, in future, may be able to say they spent time with a saint.

Among her many contributions to the evangelization of Black Catholics, Sister Thea was instrumental in the publication of the “Lead Me Guide Me” hymnal. It became a tool for outreach Catholic Churches in Black communities. Its second edition is now available and provides a wonderful enhancement to liturgies in all parishes, not just those that are historically African American. It is another resource that allows us and the church to embrace its diversity as a gift. In addition to Father Tolton and Sister Thea, there are four more African Americans on the path to sainthood.

Included are Henriette Delille and Mother Mary Lange, who started religious orders for women of color. DeLille founded Sisters of the Holy Family in 1836 and Lange co-founded the Oblates Sisters of Providence in 1829. The Oblates were the first religious community of women of African American descent.

Another on the road to sainthood is Pierre Toussaint. He arrived in the United States from Haiti and was one of New York’s most sought-after hairstylists. After he was given his freedom, he donated his accumulated wealth to help the poor in his community. Julia Greely, last of the six, also known as Denver’s “Angel of Charity,” provided assistance to countless families in poverty.

Black Catholic history was made again in 2020 when Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory became the first African American to be made cardinal. He was also the first Black president of the USCCB. Imagine if there had never been a Father Augustus Tolton to lead the way!

The Office of Ethnic Ministries published a book called My Little Black Catholic History Book, which focuses on African saints and popes, plus quizzes on Black Catholic history and an essay on Black Catholics in South Carolina. The book is free and can be downloaded from the office’s webpage.

(In addition to the book, visit charlestondiocese.org/ethnic-ministries for more Black Catholic History events and resources.)

Kathleen Merritt is the director of the diocesan Office of Ethnic Ministries. Email her at kmerritt@charlestondiocese.org.

By Kurt Jensen
WASHINGTON (CNS) – It’s a question Jeanne Mancini has already been asked so many times, she has an answer ready to go.

On Dec. 1, the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an appeal by Mississippi to remove a lower court’s injunction on its law banning most abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy.

Should the court rule in favor of the state law in a decision to be handed down next year, overturning Roe v. Wade and sending the abortion issue back to the states, will there still be a need for the annual rally and march in Washington?

Or will March for Life, a fixture since January 1974, instead become a decentralized arrangement of statewide marches?

“We will make an announcement if and when that happens,” Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, told Catholic News Service.

State marches that began a few years ago, she said, were not planned in anticipation of any Supreme Court decision, but rather as a way “to strengthen the grassroots” and provide opportunities for activism for those who don’t make the long trip to Washington.

Carrie Severino, president of Judicial Crisis Network, identified the challenge should the court uphold the Mississippi law. “It really just puts the ball back in (the states’) court. There should be 50 Marches for Life,” she said during the Oct. 27 announcement of next year’s theme, “Equality Begins in the Womb.”

“We want to expand this rigorous debate about inequality” to the unborn, Mancini said at the Heritage Foundation, where the theme was announced.

Calling the theme a cry for “inherent human dignity because of who we are in our essence,” she added, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere, including in the womb.”

Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, said in a statement that “it reclaims a key word – equality – and reminds us that unless children in the womb enjoy it, the rest of us lose it as well.”

The March for Life is scheduled for Jan. 21. The event, which starts with a rally near the National Mall followed by a march to the Supreme Court, is always held on a date near the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 rulings, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, companion rulings that legalized abortion nationwide.

“It’s going to be one of the most significant years for the march yet,” said Severino. “This court has an opportunity like none it has had before with the Dobbs case.”

The Mississippi law was enacted in 2018, but it never took effect because a federal appellate court immediately blocked its enforcement. The state’s single abortion clinic is still performing them.

With Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, as well as Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, Severino said, “we now have a majority of justices on the court who believe the Constitution must be interpreted according to its original understanding, and its original meaning.”

The turnout of more than 100,000 people for the 2020 March for Life is considered the all-time high for the event. Attendees packed the National Mall to hear President Donald Trump address the rally in person.

But in January of this year, the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and heavy security following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol reduced the march to its smallest turnout – an invited core group of 80.

Instead of the usual march up Constitution Avenue, the group took a winding route through Washington streets to the Supreme Court and were joined midway by about 100 others.

“We never thought of not doing the march,” Mancini told CNS. But, she added, she didn’t think she could comment on whether any of the current plans represent “back to normal.”

Mancini, who has headed the march since 2012 when she took over from its founder, the late Nellie Gray, said: “I wouldn’t call any march I’ve been part of a predictable march. It’s always been a little bit unpredictable.”

The bus pilgrimages that traditionally bring thousands of marchers to the nation’s capital also are difficult to predict for 2022 until reservations are confirmed by organizers and bus companies.

At the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, Ed Konieczka, assistant director of university ministry, said their goal is to have 240 students, about 50 more than in 2020, head for Washington on five buses, with an event to be held in Bismarck coinciding with the national march.

John Pratt, director of youth ministry for the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend, Indiana, told CNS that “if we are able to go, my sense would be that we would have about 80% of the participation as compared to recent years. In 2019 and 2020, we sent 10 busloads (just over 500 pilgrims) from our diocese.”

For 2022, he said, “350 to 400 (seven to eight busloads) is pretty realistic.”

WASHINGTON (CNS) – When the U.S. bishops gather for their fall assembly in Baltimore Nov. 15-18, it will be the first in-person meeting of the full body of bishops since November 2019.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the bishops’ June 2020 spring meeting, and their November 2020 fall assembly and June 2021 spring meeting were both held in a virtual format.

Topping the meeting’s agenda will be debate and votes on a proposed document on the Eucharist, “The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church,” and on a eucharistic revival initiative.

During their spring meeting this past June, 75% of the U.S. bishops approved the drafting of a document, to all Catholic faithful, on eucharistic coherence.

Part of the impetus for the bishops’ work on this document and a eucharistic revival to increase Catholics’ understanding and awareness of the Eucharist was a Pew study in the fall of 2019 that showed just 30% of Catholics “have what we might call a proper understanding of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.”

The eucharistic revival would launch on the feast of Corpus Christi in June 2022. The three-year effort will include events on the diocesan level such as eucharistic processions around the country along with adoration and prayer.
In 2023, the emphasis will be on parishes with resources available at the parish level to increase Catholics’ understanding of what the Eucharist really means. This would culminate in a National Eucharistic Congress in the summer of 2024.

The Baltimore assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will begin with an address by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, papal nuncio to the United States.

The bishops also will hear from Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the USCCB.

The agenda also includes a report to the bishops from the National Advisory Council, a group created by the USCCB that is comprised of religious and laypeople primarily for consultation on action items and information reports presented to the bishops’ Administrative Committee.

Other action items on the agenda requiring debate and a vote will be an update of the “Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines”; a proposal to add St. Teresa of Kolkata to the “Proper Calendar for the Dioceses of the United States” as an optional memorial Sept. 5; a resolution on diocesan financial reporting; new English and Spanish versions of the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults; a translation of “Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery Outside Mass”; “National Statutes for the Catechumenate” in English and Spanish; and the USCCB’s 2022 budget.

During the assembly, the bishops also will vote for a treasurer-elect for the USCCB, as well as chairmen-elect of five standing committees: Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations; Divine Worship; Domestic Justice and Human Development; Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth; and Migration.

The bishops elected will serve for one year as “elect” before beginning their three-year terms in their respective posts at the conclusion of the 2022 fall general assembly.

There also will be voting for board members for Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development agency, and the election of a new USCCB general secretary.

Also scheduled to take place will be a consultation of the bishops on the sainthood causes of Charlene Marie Richard and Auguste Robert “Nonco” Pelafigue.

Both have the title of “Servant of God” and were from the Diocese of Lafayette Louisiana, where Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel has officially opened their sainthood causes.

Charlene, a young Cajun girl who died of leukemia in 1959 at age 12, is regarded by many in south Louisiana and beyond as a saint, saying her intercession has resulted in miracles in their lives. She is known as “The little Cajun saint.”

Pelafigue was born in France and from the time he was almost 2 years old, he lived in Arnaudville, Louisiana. He died on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus June 6, 1977. He is known for his decades of ministry in the League of Sacred Heart, Apostleship of Prayer – which is now called the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.

The 2007 Vatican document “Sanctorum Mater” requires the diocesan bishop promoting a sainthood cause to consult with the body of bishops on the advisability of pursuing the cause.

Other items to be presented and discussed at the bishops’ assembly include:
– The 2021-2023 Synod of Bishops.
– The work of CRS, Catholic Charities USA and Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., or CLINIC.
– The 50th anniversary of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the U.S. bishops’ domestic anti-poverty program.
– The “Journeying Together” process of intercultural dialogue and encounter “focused on the church’s ministry with youth and young adults that fosters understanding and trust within and across cultural families toward a more welcoming and just community of faith.”
– The application and implementation of the “ Pastoral Framework for Marriage and Family Life Ministry in the United States: Called to the Joy of Love.” At their June assembly, the U.S. bishops approved a draft document that provides a pastoral framework meant to strengthen marriage and family ministry in parishes and dioceses.
– The “Walking with Moms in Need” initiative of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities that asks every diocese and parish to help mothers experiencing a difficult pregnancy find services and resources or provide these when they see gaps in such services.
Public sessions of general assembly discussions and votes will be livestreamed at www.usccb.org/meetings.

By Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON – After a prayer rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington Oct. 4, Students for Life of America and the Justice Foundation released the “Moral Outcry Petition,” a call for the court to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide.

Over half a million Americans signed the petition, which was two massive scrolls filled with the signatures.

“Every child, born or preborn, has the inalienable right to life given by God,” said Tina Whittington, executive vice president of Students for Life of America, an organization she said “stands with the hundreds of thousands of signers who call on the Supreme Court to do the right thing and protect the lives of the preborn.”

“The pro-life generation will not rest until abortion is abolished and made unthinkable,” she said.

The Justice Foundation said in a statement that the petition “stands on the premise that U.S. citizens do not accept abortion as the law of the land. Especially now that every state has passed safe-haven laws, the ‘unwanted child’ argument of the pro-abortion lobby is no longer valid.”

Safe-haven laws generally allow the parent, or an agent of the parent, to remain anonymous and to be shielded from criminal liability and prosecution for child endangerment, abandonment or neglect in exchange for surrendering the baby to a safe haven.

Pro-life supporters argue these laws provide a free, safe alternative to abortion for pregnant women in need who feel that they could not care for a newborn.

“This is an unprecedented moment in our fight to abolish abortion,” Whittington added. “With a ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson, the pro-life movement may soon see at least the partial reversal of Roe v. Wade.”

On Dec. 1, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Dobbs case, which is an appeal from Mississippi to keep its ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Supporters of the law are urging the court to reexamine its previous abortion rulings, including Roe v. Wade.

If the court overturns Roe, the move would not make abortion illegal throughout the U.S., but would return the issue to the states to be decided.

For 15 years, Whittington said, Students for Life of America “has been preparing for a post-Roe America, and the Moral Outcry petition reflects the many Americans who have fought and prayed for the protection of the preborn in law – and who now stand ready to serve mothers and families.”

Oct. 4 was the first day of the high court’s new term, and both pro-life advocates and supporters of legal abortion gathered along the street at the front of the court or nearby to rally for their side on the abortion question.

Two days earlier in Washington, supporters of legal abortion marched for “Abortion Justice,” gathering at Freedom Plaza in Washington before marching to the Supreme Court.

Organizers said some 600 “sister marches” took place across the country to protest a new Texas law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy and also to press the Supreme Court to uphold “reproductive rights” and keep Roe intact.

“The ‘Women’s March’ doesn’t speak for me or the millions of women who value human lives – it is completely out of step,” Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, wrote in an Oct. 2 opinion piece posted at www.foxnews.com.

“This year’s Women’s March is not about following science or anything that elevates women or humanity. When we march for life every January, we welcome all human beings – most especially expectant mothers and their unborn children,” she said.

If anyone expected the Oct. 2 event would be a gathering “that welcomes all women,” they instead found “a monolith of thought almost exclusively focused on pro-abortion ideology,” Mancini said.

The marchers and the event’s organizers, she added, make “no effort to keep up with emerging science as it relates to embryonic development,” nor do they “draw any lines between early abortions and procedures that cross over into infanticide.”

Recognizing “equal rights for unborn women,” she added, “sadly … does not make its way into the policy platform.”
Mancini also noted that in the nearly 50 years since the Roe v. Wade decision, “medical science has made stunning advances.”

“We now know that a baby’s heart starts to beat around five weeks, and a recent study found that babies could experience pain as early as 12 weeks,” she said. “These discoveries and numerous others should shape how we approach abortion, especially after 15 weeks, but pro-abortion advocates are stuck in the past.”

She called the Mississippi law’s 15-week limit on abortion “a modest limit.”

By Carol Zimmermann

WASHINGTON (CNS) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s new term, starting Oct. 4, returns to its standard routine: hearing arguments in person and taking on hot-button issues.

The big cases, among the 34 it has so far agreed to hear, include those on abortion, the Second Amendment, and religious liberty issues related to a death penalty case and religious schools excluded from a state school choice program.

Likely the most anticipated case of the term is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the abortion case that will be argued Dec. 1 and has been described as potentially taking down Roe v. Wade, the court’s 1973 decision legalizing abortion.

Here, the justices will consider the constitutionality of a Mississippi state law prohibiting abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. The state ban was struck down by a federal District Court in Mississippi in 2018 and upheld a year later by the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

If the court sides with Mississippi in this term’s case, it would be the first time it would allow an abortion ban before the point of viability and could lay the groundwork for other abortion restrictions.

Catholic leaders and pro-life organizations have shown support for the Mississippi law in friend-of-the-court briefs. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in its brief, stressed that abortion is not a right created by the Constitution and warned that if the court “continues to treat abortion as a constitutional issue,” it will face more questions in the future about “what sorts of abortion regulations are permissible.”

The court also is taking up two death penalty cases. On Nov. 1 it will look at an issue it has previously weighed in on: the presence of religious leaders at an execution. But this case will specifically examine exactly what a spiritual adviser can do during an execution.

The focus is on the case of John Ramirez, a Texas death-row inmate who was granted a stay of execution by the Supreme Court in early September based on his rejected appeal for his pastor to pray over him, with his hands on him, in the execution chamber.

This year the court will also hear a government appeal to reinstate the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. It will review a lower court’s decision that said errors made by the judge in Tsarnaev’s trial tainted his sentencing.

Another big case, that similarly echoes previous ones, is the Dec. 8 oral arguments in Carson v. Makin, where the court will determine if Maine violated the Constitution by prohibiting students from using funds from a state school choice program for schools that provide religious instruction.

This term, the court also will look at handgun laws, reviewing a New York law, upheld by the lower courts, that requires individuals to have a license to carry a concealed gun outside the home.

The court also will take up two immigration cases involving immigrants who were ordered to be deported but claimed they were entitled to humanitarian relief and can’t be deported to their home countries because they could be tortured or persecuted there. They have argued that after spending more than six months in immigration detention awaiting the resolution of their claims, they are entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge.

With all of these cases in the wings, Supreme Court watchers have expressed concern over the court’s current ability to find general consensus or narrowly decide cases as it did in previous term.