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Fr. Augustine Tolton (1854-1897) was the first black priest in the United States. Born into a black Catholic slave family, Father Tolton conquered almost insurmountable odds to become a Catholic priest, and at his early death at 43, this pioneer black American priest left behind a shining legacy of holy service to God, the Church and his people. With the thorough scholarly research and inspirational writing by Sister Caroline Hemesath, the great legacy of this first black priest, and his courage in the face of incredible prejudice within the Church and society, will be a source of strength and hope for modern Christians who face persecution for their faith, especially black Catholics who still experience similar prejudices. In American history, many black people have achieved, against great odds, success and made distinct contributions to our society and their fellowman. But Father Tolton faced a different source of prejudice an opposition from within the Church, the one institution he should have been able to rely on for compassion and support. He endured many rebuffs, as a janitor spent long hours in the church chapel in prayer, and attended clandestine classes taught by friendly priests and nuns who saw in his eyes the bright spark of the love of God, devotion to the Church and a determination to serve his people. Denied theological training in America, these friends helped him to receive his priestly education, and ordination, in Rome. He later became the pastor of St. Monica's Church in Chicago and established a center at St. Monica's which was the focal point for the life of black Catholics in Chicago for 30 years. The author interviewed many people who knew Father Tolton personally, including St. Katharine Drexel, and presents a deeply inspiring portrait of a great American Catholic. Within this book are various illustrations and photographs.
In these fascinating pages, popular author and speaker Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers tells the gripping story of Augustine Tolton, who valiantly overcame a series of seemingly insurmountable challenges — birth into slavery, his father's death, abject poverty, and even being denied acceptance by every Catholic seminary in America — to become the first black American priest. Despite the hardships placed on Fr. Tolton by a culture rooted in racial hatred, he became a tireless messenger of the Gospel, plunging into the Deep South where segregation was decreed by harsh laws, penetrating even the hardest of hearts with the richness, beauty, and truth of the Catholic Faith. He was a beacon of hope to black Catholics in the 19th Century who were trying to find a home in the American Church. He was a visionary who saw beyond race and politics, teaching that the Catholic Church wants to free us not just from slavery, but from slavery to sin. Amidst great persecution, Fr. Tolton showed us that being configured to Christ means emptying ourselves so that God can fill us, exposing the weakest parts of who we are so that God can make us strong, becoming blind to the ways of this world so Christ can lead us, and dying to ourselves so we can rise with Christ. All who seek to be formed more perfectly to Christ have a role model in Fr. Tolton, a persevering and holy man who sought above all the salvation of souls.
Father Augustus Tolton was the first identified black American ordained to the priesthood in the United States. He was born into slavery and escaped to freedom with his mother and siblings under harrowing circumstances. Throughout his life he displayed a great devotion to the Lord and the Catholic faith despite facing racism within the Church at nearly every turn. Still, he felt and preached that the Catholic Church's teaching that all people are children of God regardless of race made it the true church for African Americans in the United States following the Civil War. In Augustus Tolton, Joyce Duriga brings to light his quiet witness as a challenge to prejudices and narrow-mindedness that can keep us insulated from the universal diversity of the kingdom of God.
This powerful book is about one of the most controversial realities in our modern world: the existence of slave labor in the 21st century, with millions of people today living in horrendous conditions of abuse and subjugation. It is the heroic story of missionary priest Fr. Christopher Hartley who, inspired by the Gospel, committed his life to fight for such workers in the sugar cane industry of the Dominican Republic so they could live and die with the human dignity that was denied them. When he arrived in 1997, Fr. Hartley carried out intense work of evangelization and, calling on the social doctrine of the Church, denounced the situation of slavery of his faithful: he proclaimed it in a speech before the President of the Republic and he confronted the proprietors of the sugar mills. Because of his strong criticism of such exploitation, he endured harsh treatment by the press and others, and was threatened with death. During his years of mission until he was expelled from the country in 2006, he wrote detailed letters to his friend about the horrible conditions he was fighting against for his people. In the letters, together with rich spiritual reflections and filled with apostolic passion, Fr. Hartley tells chilling stories of his people's suffering as well as striking expressions of love for God and faith in Providence by those who have nothing. These moving, insightful letters are the heart of this book, bolstered by the inspiring testimonies of those who lived and worked by his side in this great missionary epic. It reveals how terrible evil and suffering can be overcome by strong faith and deep love. "This is a book that exudes hope, which generates the happiness and joy of living, and sparks a lively desire to do the same: to evangelize. The testimony of this beloved missionary priest transmits joy and light, as he transmitted that same joy and hope to those long-suffering brothers and sisters in the Dominican Republic." - Cardinal Antonio Canizares, from the Foreword
Historically, black Americans have affiliated in far greater numbers with certain protestant denominations than with the Roman Catholic church. In analyzing this phenomenon scholars have sometimes alluded to the dearth of black Catholic priest, but non one has adequately explained why the church failed to ordain significant numbers of black clergy until the 1930s. Desegregating the Altar, a broadly based study encompassing Afro-American, Roman catholic, southern, and institutional history, fills that gap by examining the issue through the experience of St. Joseph’s Society of the Sacred Heart, or the Josephites, the only American community of Catholic priests devoted exclusively to evangelization of blacks. Drawing on extensive research in the previously closed or unavailable archives of numerous archdioceses, diocese, and religious communities, Stephen J. Ochs shows that, in many cases, Roman catholic authorities purposely excluded Afro-Americans from their seminaries. The conscious pattern of discrimination on the part of numerous bishops and heads of religious institutes stemmed from a number of factors, including the church’s weak and vulnerable position in the South and the consequent reluctance of its leaders to challenge local racial norms; the tendency of Roman Catholics to accommodate to the regional and national cultures in which they lived; deep-seated psychosexual fears that black men would be unable to maintain celibacy as priests; and a “missionary approach” to blacks that regarded them as passive children rather than as potential partners and leaders. The Josephites, under the leadership of John R. Slattery, their first superior general (1893–1903), defied prevailing racist sentiment by admitting blacks into their college and seminary and raising three of them to the priesthood between 1891 and 1907. This action proved so explosive, however, that it helped drive Slattery out of the church and nearly destroyed the Josephite community. In the face of such opposition, Josephite authorities closed their college and seminary to black candidates except for an occasional mulatto. Leadership in the development of a black clergy thereupon passed to missionaries of the Society of the Diving Word. Meanwhile, Afro-American Catholics, led by Professor Thomas Wyatt, refused to allow the Josephites to abandon the filed quietly. They formed the Federated Colored Catholics of America and pressed the Josephites to return to their earlier policies; they also communicated their grievances to the Holy See, which, in turn, quietly pressured the American church to open its seminaries to black candidates. As a result, by 1960, the number of black priests and seminarians in the Josephites and throughout the Catholic church in the United States had increased significantly. Stephen Ochs’s study of the Josephites illustrates the tenacity and insidiousness of institutional racism and the tendency of churches to opt for institutional security rather than a prophetic stance in the face of controversial social issues. His book ably demonstrates that the struggle of black Catholics for priests of their own race mirrored the efforts of Afro-Americans throughout American society to achieve racial equality and justice.
Mehr als 400 Jahre lang erlitten schwarzafrikanische Männer, Frauen und Kinder während des transatlantischen Sklavenhandels schlimmste Formen der Versklavung und Erniedrigung durch Katholiken und das westliche Christentum. Damals wie heute glaubte niemand an die tiefe Verwicklung der Kirche und des Papsttums in den schwarzafrikanischen Holocaust. Trotz jüngster Behauptungen des päpstlichen Officiums in Rom, wonach die Päpste jegliche Form von Sklaverei verurteilten, so auch im Falle der Versklavung von Schwarzafrikanern, verweisen neuere Studien innerhalb dieses Forschungsfeldes auf das Gegenteil. Die Kirche und die Päpste nahmen vielmehr zentrale Rollen in diesem schlimmsten Verbrechen gegen die Schwarzafrikaner seit Beginn der schriftlichen Dokumentation ein. Mithilfe zahlreicher päpstlicher Bullen aus den Geheimarchiven des Vatikans und einer Vielzahl an königlichen Dokumenten aus dem portugiesischen Nationalarchiv in Lissabon, strebt der vorliegende Band eine kritische und analytische Untersuchung dieses Aspekts des transatlantischen Sklavenhandels an, der über so viele Jahre von den westlichen Historikern und Gelehrten verschleiert wurde. For over 400 years, Black African men, women and children suffered the worst type of enslavement and humiliation from the hands of Catholics and other Western Christians during the transatlantic slave trade. Before now, no one could ever believe that the Popes of the Church were deeply involved in this Holocaust against Black African people. Despite the claims made by the hallowed papal office in Rome in recent years that the Popes condemned the enslavement of peoples wherever it existed including that of Black Africans, recent researches in these fields of study have proved the contrary to be true. The Church and her Popes were rather among the major “role players” in this worst crime against Black Africans in recorded history. With the help of a considerable number of papal Bulls from the Vatican Secret Archives and a great amount of Royal documents from the Portuguese National Archives in Lisbon, the present book is aiming to undertake a critical and analytical inquiry of this aspect of the transatlantic slavery that has been kept in the dark for so many years by the Western historians and scholars. The results of this studious but fruitful academic inquiry are laid bare in this notable work of the 21st century. Pius Onyemechi Adiele is a Catholic priest of Ahiara Diocese Mbaise and an alumnus of Seat of Wisdom Seminary Owerri and Bigard Memorial Seminary Enugu in Nigeria. He obtained his licentiate in Theology from the famous University of Münster and his doctoral degree in Church History from the renowned University of Tübingen in Germany. At present, he is a research fellow in the areas of African Church History and Enslavement of peoples as well as the pastor in charge of the merged parishes of Lauchheim, Westhausen, Lippach, Röttingen and Hülen in Germany.
Since its original publication in Portuguese in 2008, this first English translation of Divining Slavery has been extensively revised and updated, complete with new primary sources and a new bibliography. It tells the story of Domingos Sodré, an African-born priest who was enslaved in Bahia, Brazil in the nineteenth century. After obtaining his freedom, Sodré became a slave owner himself, and in 1862 was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen goods from slaves in exchange for supposed 'witchcraft'. Using this incident as a catalyst, the book discusses African religion and its place in a slave society, analyzing its double role as a refuge for blacks as well as a bridge between classes and ethnic groups (such as whites who attended African rituals and sought help from African diviners and medicine men). Ultimately, Divining Slavery explores the fluidity and relativity of conditions such as slavery and freedom, African and local religions, personal and collective experience and identities in the lives of Africans in the Brazilian diaspora.