The Archdiocese of New Orleans is a Latin Church ecclesiastical division of the Catholic Church spanning Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany, and Washington civil parishes of southeastern Louisiana. It is the second to the Archdiocese of Baltimore in age among the present dioceses in the United States, having been elevated to the rank of diocese on April 25, 1793, during Spanish colonial rule.
The Society of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart abbreviated SSJ, also known as the Josephites is a society of apostolic life of Pontifical Right for men headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. They work specifically among African Americans.
John Huston Ricard, S.S.J. is an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee in Florida from 1997 to 2011 and as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore in Maryland from 1984 to 1997.
Joseph Lawson Edward Howze was an African-American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as the first Bishop of Biloxi from 1977 to 2001, and was the first Black Catholic bishop of an American diocese.
Eugene Antonio Marino, SSJ was an American Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Atlanta, Georgia, from 1988 until 1990, becoming the first African American archbishop in history. He was also the first such auxiliary bishop in Washington, D.C., and the first to be secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Society of African Missions, also known as the SMA Fathers, is a Catholic religious society of apostolic life of pontifical right for men founded by Melchior de Marion Brésillac in 1856. They serve the people of Africa and those of African descent.
Augustine Van de Vyver was a Belgian-born American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the sixth bishop of the Diocese of Richmond in Virginia from 1889 to 1911.
Charles Randolph Uncles, SSJ was an African-American Catholic priest. In 1891, he became the first such priest ordained on US soil. Two years later, he co-founded the Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, formed to minister to the African American community.
Historic St. Francis Xavier Church is a Black Catholic parish in Baltimore, Maryland. It is said to be the first exclusively Black parish in America, having been established in 1863.
Black Catholicism or African-American Catholicism comprises the African American people, beliefs, and practices in the Catholic Church.
The Black Catholic Movement was a movement of African-American Catholics in the United States that developed and shaped modern Black Catholicism.
William Augustine Williams was an African-American linguist, librarian, Catholic seminarian, and public figure. He was the first openly African-American Catholic seminarian—preceding Augustus Tolton—but was never ordained, having left Rome's Pontifical Urban University in 1862 after facing racist opposition to his prospective ministry in the United States.
John Richard Slattery was an American former Catholic priest, activist, missionary, writer, and lawyer. He was first a member of the Mill Hill Missionaries, later becoming in 1893 a co-founder and the first superior general of the Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart.
St. Joseph's Seminary is a former Catholic major seminary and current house of formation in Washington, D.C. for the Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic society of apostolic life that serves African Americans. The seminary was the first in the United States to accept Black men into formation for the Catholic priesthood and religious life.
William Leonard "Bill" Norvel, SSJ is an African-American Catholic priest who served as the 13th and first Black superior general of the Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, also known as the Josephites. The society was founded to serve African Americans in 1893. Norvel, ordained to the priesthood in 1965, became superior in 2011—the first Black man to head a Catholic religious community in the United States.
Martinho (Martin) Maria de Porres Ward, O.F.M. Conv. was an African-American Catholic priest and Franciscan friar who served as a missionary in Brazil for more than forty years. He was the first African American to join the Conventual Friars Minor in the United States and has been proposed as a candidate for canonization by the Diocese of São João del Rei. In recognition of this, he is given the religious title of Servant of God.
St. Augustine Seminary, originally named Sacred Heart College, was a Black Catholic seminary run by the Society of the Divine Word in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Founded in 1920 in Greenville at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, it relocated in 1923 was the first seminary intended to educate African Americans for the priesthood.
St. Anthony's Mission House and Theological Seminary was a Catholic minor seminary for the Society of African Missions founded in Highwood, Bergen County, New Jersey. It was spearheaded in 1921 by Fr Ignatius Lissner, SMA as an interracial institution to educate men for the priesthood.
Joseph B. Anciaux, SSJ, was a Belgian Catholic priest who ministered in the United States during the early 20th century until his return to Belgium. Anciaux worked among largely African American populations and was a member of the Josephites, a society of apostolic life founded to work among African Americans.
