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.
Benedict Joseph Flaget was a French-born Catholic bishop in the United States. He served as the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bardstown between 1808 and 1839. When the see was transferred to Louisville in 1839, he became Bishop of the Diocese of Louisville where he served from 1839 to 1850.
A society of apostolic life is a group of men or women within the Catholic Church who have come together for a specific purpose and live fraternally. It is regarded as a form of consecrated life.
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.
The Oblate Sisters of Providence (OSP) is a Catholic women's religious institute founded by Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, and James Nicholas Joubert in 1829 in Baltimore, Maryland for the education of girls of African descent. It was the first permanent community of Black Catholic sisters in the United States.
Mary Elizabeth Lange, OSP was an American religious sister who founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first African-American religious congregation. She was also, via the Oblates, the first-ever African-American superior general.
James Mary Hector Nicolas Joubert de la Muraille, PSS was a French Catholic priest in the United States. A teacher at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, he co-founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence along with Mary Lange.
The Oblates of the Virgin Mary is a religious institute of priests and brothers founded by Bruno Lanteri (1759–1830) in the Kingdom of Sardinia in the early 19th century. The institute is characterized by a zeal for the work of preaching and the sacrament of confession, according to the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola and the moral theology of St. Alphonsus Liguori. It is also marked by love for Mary and fidelity to the magisterium.
Samuel Eccleston, P.S.S. was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as the fifth Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Maryland from 1834 until his death in 1851.
The Shrine of St. Joseph is a Catholic church in St. Louis, Missouri in Columbus Square. The church began in 1843 when the Jesuits founded the parish to serve the residential community consisting mostly of German immigrants. The church is the site of the only authenticated miracle in the Midwestern United States.
St. Mary's Seminary Chapel, located at 600 North Paca Street in the Seton Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, is the oldest Neo-Gothic style church in the United States. It was built from 1806 through 1808 by French architect J. Maximilian M. Godefroy for the French Sulpician priests of St. Mary's Seminary. Godefroy claimed that his design was the first Gothic building in America.
Most Pure Heart of Mary Catholic Church is a Catholic church in Mobile, Alabama administered by the Josephites. The Knights of Peter Claver, the largest and oldest Black Catholic organization in the United States, was founded by congregants and priests from the parish in 1909. Its clergy and congregation later took an active role in the Civil Rights Movement.
John Tessier S.S. was a French Sulpician priest who emigrated from France at the time of the Revolution. From 1810 to 1829 he was the Provincial Superior of the Sulpician congregation in the United States. He served as vicar-general to the Roman Catholic Bishops of Baltimore, and for a time oversaw both St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore and Mount St. Mary's College and Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
The history of the French in Baltimore dates back to the 18th century. The earliest wave of French immigration began in the mid-18th century, bringing many Acadian refugees from Canada's Maritime Provinces. The Acadians were exiled from Canada by the British during the French and Indian War. Later waves of French settlement in Baltimore from the 1790s to the early 19th century brought Roman Catholic refugees of the French Revolution and refugees of the Haitian Revolution from the French colony of Saint-Domingue.
St. Ignatius Church is a historic Catholic church in Baltimore, Maryland within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Established and administered by the Society of Jesus, the church is dedicated to Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the order's founder. It is located at 740 N. Calvert St in the Mt. Vernon neighborhood, north of downtown Baltimore, and is considered the city’s center of history and culture.
Saint Joseph Catholic Church is a predominantly Black Catholic church located at 711 N. Columbus St in historic Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. It was founded in 1916 to provide African-American parishioners of the local St. Mary's Roman Catholic Parish with their own church, freed from the customary restrictions that segregation imposed on them.
The city of Baltimore, Maryland includes a large and growing Caribbean-American population. The Caribbean-American community is centered in West Baltimore. The largest non-Hispanic Caribbean populations in Baltimore are Jamaicans, Trinidadians and Tobagonians, and Haitians. Baltimore also has significant Hispanic populations from the Spanish West Indies, particularly Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Cubans. Northwest Baltimore is the center of the West Indian population of Baltimore, while Caribbean Hispanics in the city tend to live among other Latinos in neighborhoods such as Greektown, Upper Fell's Point, and Highlandtown. Jamaicans and Trinidadians are the first and second largest West Indian groups in the city, respectively. The neighborhoods of Park Heights and Pimlico in northwest Baltimore are home to large West Indian populations, particularly Jamaican-Americans.
Black Catholicism or African-American Catholicism comprises the African American people, beliefs, and practices in the Catholic Church.
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.
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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