Black Catholic History Month

A mother and son from Roman North Africa. Monica's faithful, tearful prayers followed Augustine through years of restless searching until his conversion in Milan under St. Ambrose. He became Bishop of Hippo and one of the Church's greatest teachers.

Born in Lima, Peru, to a Spanish nobleman and a formerly enslaved Black mother, Martín served the Dominicans for years as a lay helper before being admitted to vows despite laws that barred him. He poured himself out caring for the sick and the poor.

Kidnapped as a child in Sudan and sold into slavery, Bakhita was eventually brought to Italy, where she found Christ through the Canossian Sisters. Baptized Josephine, she entered their community and became known for her gentleness and constant smile.

Born enslaved in Haiti and brought to New York, Pierre became one of the city's most sought-after hairdressers. Once free, he gave his wealth away: sheltering orphans, nursing the sick during yellow fever epidemics, and helping fund the city's first cathedral.

A Caribbean-born woman of Haitian descent, Mother Lange founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore in 1829, the first religious congregation of African American women. The sisters educated children, cared for orphans, and nursed the dying during the 1832 cholera epidemic.

A free woman of color in New Orleans, Henriette overcame opposition, poverty, and poor health to found the Sisters of the Holy Family in 1842, devoting her life to the enslaved, the sick, the elderly, and orphans.

Born into slavery in Missouri, Augustus escaped to Illinois with his mother. Turned away by American seminaries, he studied in Rome and was ordained in 1886, becoming the first U.S. priest publicly known to be Black. "Good Father Gus" built St. Monica's parish in Chicago.

Born enslaved in Hannibal, Missouri, and freed in 1865, Julia made her home in Denver. A daily communicant and Secular Franciscan, she spread devotion to the Sacred Heart to every firehouse in the city and quietly brought food and help to poor families.

Raised in Canton, Mississippi, Thea became Catholic as a child and joined the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. A teacher, singer, and evangelist, she shared the gifts of Black Catholic spirituality with the whole Church until her death in 1990.