A pastoral council is a consultative body in dioceses and parishes of the Catholic Church that serves to advise the parish priest or bishop about pastoral issues. The council's main purpose is to investigate, reflect and reach conclusions about pastoral matters to recommend to the parish priest or bishop as appropriate.
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.
Joseph Nathaniel Perry is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Chicago from 1998 to 2023.
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.
The Knights of Peter Claver and Ladies Auxiliary is an international Catholic fraternal service order. Founded in 1909 by the Josephites and parishioners from Most Pure Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Mobile, Alabama, it is the largest and oldest Black Catholic lay-led organization still in existence.
Daniel Arthur Rudd was a Black Catholic journalist and early Civil Rights leader.
A Catholic lay association, also referred to as Catholic Congress, is an association of lay Catholics aiming to discuss certain political or social issues from a Catholic perspective.
The National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus (NBCCC) is an organization of African-American clergy, religious, and seminarians within the Catholic Church.
The Federated Colored Catholics (FCC), originally the Committee against the Extension of Race Prejudice in the Church, then the Committee for the Advancement of Colored Catholics, was a Black Catholic organization founded in 1925 by Thomas Wyatt Turner. It was a kind of spiritual successor to Daniel Rudd's Colored Catholic Congress movement (1889-1904), providing an organized voice in an era of nearly unchecked anti-Blackness and systemic racism. After a hostile takeover, it folded in the 1950s.
The Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians is a U.S. Roman Catholic institution that administers a national annual appeal in support of Catholic mission work.
Catholic laity are the ordinary members of the Catholic Church who are neither clergy nor recipients of Holy Orders or vowed to life in a religious order or congregation. Their mission, according to the Second Vatican Council, is to "sanctify the world".
Joseph Abel Francis Jr. (1923–1997) was an American Catholic bishop. He served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Newark from 1976 to 1995.
The National Office for Black Catholics (NOBC) was an organization of Black Catholics in the United States, founded in 1970 and headquartered in Washington, DC. Its mission was “to make the Church relevant to the needs of the black community; to assist generally in the black liberation movement; to assist black Catholics in their efforts to become self-determining; and to become an effective voice in the whole of Church government.”
Roy Edward Campbell, Jr. is an African-American prelate of the Catholic Church who has been serving as an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Washington since 2017.
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.
The Our Mother of Africa Chapel is a shrine housed in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. It was built in the 1990s after a fundraising appeal sponsored by the National Black Catholic Congress, and was dedicated in 1997.
The Colored Catholic Congress movement was a series of meetings organized by Daniel Rudd in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for African-American Catholics to discuss issues affecting their communities, churches, and other institutions.
The National Black Sisters' Conference (NBSC) is an association of Black Catholic religious sisters and nuns based in the United States. It was founded in Pittsburgh in 1968 by Martin de Porres Grey, following her exclusion from the inaugural meeting of the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus earlier that same year.
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.
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