A priest and former slave who served in Chicago and western Illinois in the late 1800s is a step closer to becoming a saint.
Ordained in 1886, Fr Augustus Tolton was the first Catholic priest in the US publicly known to be black. Born a slave in Missouri, his family eventually reached the free state of Illinois.
When he wished to pursue studies for the priesthood, Fr Tolton was rejected by every American seminary to which he applied and eventually enrolled in Rome’s Pontifical Urban University.
Expecting to be sent to an African mission, he returned to the Chicago area to serve the area’s African-American population. He died in 1897, amid an infamous Chicago heat wave.
WGEM-TV reports his remains were exhumed from St Peter’s Cemetery in Quincy, Chicago, on Saturday. They will be examined for historical verification purposes.
The late Cardinal Francis George of Chicago submitted Fr Tolton as a candidate for sainthood in 2010.
A formal report documenting his life, known as a “postitio,” was submitted to the Vatican in 2014.
-Crux
