Sister Henriette Delille was born in 1812 in New Orleans as a free woman of color. When she was 24, she experienced a religious awakening, declaring her newfound fervor by writing in French on a page of a book on the Eucharist: “I believe in God. I hope in God. I love. I want to live and die for God.”

Sister Henriette founded the Sisters of the Holy Family in 1842 in New Orleans after previously establishing a confraternity of women. Sister Henriette’s Sisters of the Holy Family cared for the poor, the abandoned and the elderly and are still active today.

After her death in 1862, one obituary noted that she “devoted herself untiringly for many years, without reserve, to the religious instruction of the people of New Orleans, principally of slaves.”

Sister Henriette was declared venerable by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.

Learn more at www.henriettedelille.com

Pierre Toussaint was born in 1766 in Haiti as a slave. He travelled to New York in his 20s, where he worked as a well-regarded hairdresser and eventually became a freeman. A man of considerable wealth, Toussaint was a generous donor to a variety of causes. He helped raise funds to build the original St. Patrick’s Cathedral and St. Vincent de Paul church. He and his wife also took in orphans and cared for people suffering from yellow fever. Toussaint was also known for his support of St. Patrick’s Orphan Asylum and for giving financial support to the Baltimore-based Oblate Sisters of Providence who ministered to the Black community.

Toussaint died in 1853 in New York. He was declared venerable by St. John Paul II in 1997.

Learn more at www.bitly.com/toussaint-cause

Venerable Father Augustus Tolton was born a slave in 1854 in Missouri. His father escaped to the North at the start of the Civil War, joined the Union Army and was killed during the war. His mother eventually settled with her children in Quincy, Illinois, and Tolton was educated privately by the Sisters of Notre Dame.

Devoted to his faith, Tolton prepared for the priesthood in Rome and was ordained on April 24, 1886, in the Eternal City. He was the first recognized African American ordained to the priesthood. (Josephite Father Charles Uncles later became the first African American ordained on U.S. soil when he was ordained in Baltimore in 1891.)

Father Tolton ministered as a parish priest in Illinois, first at St. Joseph church in Quincy and then at what would become St. Monica church with an outreach to Black Catholics in Chicago. He addressed the First Catholic Colored Congress in Washington, D.C. in 1889.

Father Tolton died at Mercy Hospital in Chicago in 1897. Pope Francis declared him venerable in 2019.

Learn more at www.tolton.archchicago.org

Mother Mary Lange was born Elizabeth Clarisse Lange in the 1790s in Cuba, where she lived in a French-speaking community. She left Cuba in the early 1800s and settled in Baltimore, where she opened a school for Black children in her home.

In 1828, Mother Lange founded St. Frances Academy – the first Catholic school to educate African Americans – in Baltimore. A year later, Mother Lange founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first religious community for African-American women. She was superior general from 1829 to 1832, and again from 1835 to 1841. She also helped to nurse the sick during a Baltimore cholera epidemic in the early 1830s and in the mid-1840s.

The Oblate Sisters of Providence served as teachers and ministered in African-American parishes and remain active today.

Mother Lange died on Feb. 3, 1882.

 Learn more at www.motherlange.org

Sister Thea Bowman, the first African-American member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, was born Bertha Elizabeth Bowman in 1937 in Mississippi, and converted to Catholicism as a child.

When she joined the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, she was given the religious name “Sister Mary Thea” in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her father, Theon.

In her ministry, she taught at all grade levels, earned a doctorate and became a college professor of English and linguistics. A natural storyteller and gifted singer, Sister Thea encouraged church leaders to celebrate Black cultural and spiritual traditions and she strongly encouraged leaders to make sure African Americans participate in decision-making in the church.

Sister Thea was the director of the Office of Intercultural Affairs for the Diocese of Jackson and a founding faculty member of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans. 

After a battle with cancer, Sister Thea died in 1990.

Learn more at www.sistertheabowman.com

Julia Greeley was born into slavery in Missouri in the 1830s or 1840s. As a child, she suffered severe damage to one of her eyes when a slave master’s whip struck her while he was beating her mother.

Eventually becoming a free woman, Greeley entered the Catholic Church in 1880, joining Sacred Heart parish in Denver. Known as the city’s “Angel of Mercy,” Julia regularly distributed aid to the poor of the city. She was especially devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, visiting every fire station in Denver once a month to distribute information on the Sacred Heart League. She was a daily communicant and was active as a Secular Franciscan until her death in 1918.

For more information, visit www.juliagreeley.org