Tolton “came to Rome because Rome … was willing to take him on as a seminarian when no other seminary in the United States would accept that.”
Venerable Augustus Tolton, a former slave turned Catholic priest, is now on the path to sainthood in the Catholic Church. He studied in Rome near the Spanish Steps at the Pontifical Urban University, run by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, from 1880 to 1886, when he was ordained in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran.
Tolton offered his first Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on April 25, 1886. One hundred and thirty-four years later, Pope Francis made Gregory the first African American cardinal in a ceremony in the same basilica in 2020.
“I know that the honor that was given to me by Pope Francis rested solidly on the faith of African American Catholics,” Gregory told CNA.
“Even in times when we weren’t respected, or understood, or honored, we remained faithful.”
“And the fact that I can enjoy the office, knowing that it rests on the quality of goodness, faith, and charity of the African American community, humbles me deeply,” the cardinal said with tears in his eyes.
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