The "Saintly Seven": A look at seven African American candidates for sainthood, pt. 3

Students at St. John the Apostle Catholic School in North Richland Hills dress up as different consecrated religious that serve the Church on Nov. 7, 2024. (NTC/Juan Guajardo)

While there are many Black saints, there are no African Americans counted among them. However any one of the "Saintly Seven" — Vens. Pierre Toussaint, Henriette Delille, Augustus Tolton and Mary Lange, and Servants of God Julia Greeley, Thea Bowman and Martin Maria de Porres Ward — could become the first African American saint.

The next cause for canonization

Our Mother of Mercy parishioner Bernardine Sullivan recalls growing up with St. Martin de Porres being the only Black saint she could identify with. She remembers that her grandmother — who was born in 1880 — considered St. Martin her favorite saint.

“At that time, he was not St. Martin de Porres, he was Blessed Martin de Porres,” she said. He was beatified in 1837 and canonized in 1926. “My grandmother had a little workbook from catechism, and it was one of those with the Black profile of him, and she kept that, always talked about St. Martin. At that time, that’s the only one we knew who was anywhere near a saint.”

It wasn’t until much later that her family learned of the African saints from the early Church, such as St. Augustine or some of the early popes.

Looking at the sainthood candidates, fellow Our Mother of Mercy parishioner Marie Barks said their lives can be an example to all people, not just Black Catholics.

“They embraced God in spite of what they were faced with. It was harder for them because of their color, but they still tread forth to trust in God in whatever they did, and they were servants to their community, servants to others. It’s only the color that makes the difference,” she said.

Fr. Martin Maria de Porres Ward’s cause was the most recent one to open. Because it began in Brazil, he hadn’t been included in previous lists of these sainthood candidates.

Kaye Crawford, the founder of BlackCatholicHistory.com, believes there are more stories of holy African-American Catholics who can serve as examples.

“There are probably hundreds of men like Fr. Ward that we don’t know about. There’s more like Pierre Toussaint. There is an enormous amount of Catholic history that has not really been explored,” said Crawford. “I hope several more candidates, that those cases are opened in the years to come. There has to be so many that we didn’t know about before, but it’s important for us to take the time to do that research and make it a priority.”

Biographical information for this article was taken from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “Saintly Seven” page, the National Black Catholic Congress’ “Noteworthy Black Catholics” page and from the websites for the causes for canonization of each of these candidates.