Augustus John Tolton, the second of three children, was born into slavery on April 1,1854 in Brush Creek, Missouri. He was baptized as Catholic since the Eliot family, the owners of the plantation, were Catholics. His mother, Martha Jane Chisley, had been given as a wedding present to the Eliot family, on whose plantation she met and married Augustus’ father, Peter Paul Tolton. When Augustus was seven years old, his father died fighting in the Civil War defending the cause that all men are created equal. That same year, the Tolton family escaped from slavery by the Underground Railroad to Quincy, Illinois. After the family arrived there, Augustus and his brothers and sisters were enrolled in St. Boniface Catholic School where they were taunted and insulted for being black. The pressure was so great that Martha Jane Chisley took her children out of school and Augustus John Tolton started to work in a tobacco factory.
However, an immigrant priest from Ireland, Father Peter McGirt, recognized the talents and intelligence of this young man and he gave Augustus the opportunity to enroll in St. Peter parish school. However, there were still problems, because many parishioners were against having a black child study in their parochial school. Even with Father McGirt’s influence and help, Augustus was not allowed to study for the priesthood in his own country. He was rejected by every seminary in the United States. Year after year the Tolton family embraced fervent prayer and unwavering trust and hope that God would respond to their petitions and open the door to the priesthood for Augustus. For hours and hours far into the night Augustus would speak with his mother about his vocation and waited, planned and prayed.
Finally, Augustus John Tolton was sent to Rome to study. He thrived in the Eternal City where his vocation was nurtured and his gifts and talents were recognized. On April 24, 1886, Holy Saturday, Father Augustus Tolton was ordained to the priesthood at St. John Lateran Church, the cathedral of Rome and the “mother and head of all churches the world.”
Father Augustus Tolton celebrated his first Mass in the United States for the School Sisters of Notre Dame. To this day, there is a plaque in the chapel of St. Mary’s Hospital in Hoboken, New Jersey that reads, “The first Mass in the United States by the first African-American priest and ex-slave was celebrated on Wednesday, July 7, 1886.”
Then, Father Tolton celebrated his first High, Solemn Mass at St. Benedict the Moor Church, a black parish in New York City before a massive congregation. Later, Father Augustus Tolton returned to Quincy, Illinois where he was installed as pastor of St. Joseph Church, which served the black Catholics of Quincy.
His second assignment was to answer even greater needs as he was sent to Chicago, Illinois. On the South Side stands St. Monica Parish where the United States’ first African American priest in our history became famous for his eloquence in preaching both in and out of the pulpit. Tolton never wavered from the Church despite enduring the cross of racism and bigotry. We can see by the life and faith of Father Augustus Tolton that he always lived and acknowledged the great gifts of the Catholic faith.
Father Tolton was a visionary who saw beyond issues of race and politics and looking inward he saw and loved the heart of the Catholic Church Herself. His words provide his wonderful love for God and the Church: “The Catholic Church deplores a double slavery—that of the mind and that of the body. She tries to free us of both. I was a poor, slave boy, but the priests of the Church did not disdain me. It was through the influence of one of them that I became a priest of the church who learned to pray and forgive. The Church which knows and makes no distinction in race and color calls us all. When the Church does this, she is a true liberator of the race. In the Church we do not have to fight for our rights because the Church is for all people, including our people.”
Described as being “tireless and inexhaustible” in his vocation, Father Tolton died during a terrible heat wave in July of 1897 at the young age of 43. On June 11, 2019 Pope Francis signed a decree declaring that Father Augustus Tolton was officially advancing to Sainthood by naming him “the Venerable Augustus Tolton.” The beautification and canonization of Father Tolton in the future will signal an important and significant milestone in the history of the
The Rev. Gus Puleo is pastor of St. Patrick Church in Norristown and serves as director of the English as a Second Language (ESL) program at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia. He is a graduate of Norristown High School and attended Georgetown University, where he received B.A. and B.S. in Spanish and linguistics. He has master’s degrees in Spanish, linguistics and divinity from Middlebury College, Georgetown University and St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. He holds a Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of Pennsylvania.