Fr. Augustus Tolton

In 1862, Martha Tolton was a runaway slave. She traveled 20 miles with her children Charley (9), Gus (8), and Anne (20 months) to Hannibal, Missouri. With the help of Union troops, she got into an old rowboat and managed to get her family across safely while Confederate troops fired at her.

Three days and twenty one miles later they arrived in Quincy, Illinois. There she and her sons began working in a tobacco factory. When Charley was ten, he died from pneumonia. When Gus (Augustus) turned ten, she got him enrolled in a local Catholic school as the first black student. Unfortunately the other parents rebelled threatening to withdraw their children, withhold their giving and/or leave the parish entirely. A month later, Gus was no longer in the school.

Four years later, Fr. Peter McGirr insisted that Gus begin attending school at St. Lawrence (now known as St. Peter). While a student, Fr. McGirr realized that Gus seemed to have a calling to the priesthood. At the age of 19, he began to be tutored in Latin and prepared for the priesthood.

Seven years later, after every seminary and religious order in the United States refused to allow Gus to enter (due to his race) he left for Rome to study at the Collegium Urbanum de Propaganda Fide. The understanding was that upon ordination he would become a missionary priest in Africa.

The day before he would be ordained a priest, Cardinal Simeoni told Gus Augustus that at a committee meeting the evening before, it was agreed that he should be sent to Africa, but at the end of the discussion, Simeoni overruled the committee announcing, "America has been called the most enlightened nation in the world. We shall see whether it deserves that honor. If the United States has never before seen a black priest, it must see one now." He was assigned to a parish in Quincy and was the first black, diocesan priest in the United States.

A few years after his time in Quincy, Fr. Tolton was assigned to an all black church in Chicago. Fr. Tolton died in Chicago 115 years ago today. On March 10, 2010 Cardinal George announced his intent to pursue the cause of sainthood for Fr. Augustus Tolton. On February 13, 2012 the Sacred Congregation for Causes of Saints at the Vatican granted the title "Servant of God" to Father Augustus Tolton and ordered that the Archdiocese of Chicago proceed with the Diocesan Inquiry into his life and virtues.

For more information on Fr. Tolton, click here.