How do you prepare for Lent? How have you prepared in the past? What are your ideas about what should happen during Lent? We have the traditional Catholic practices of praying, fasting, and almsgiving. So, we pray more than usual, or we pray with different emphases. We eat smaller or fewer meals or give up a favorite food or drink group. We give more of our resources or give them specifically to special works of mercy during Lent. Read More

On Sunday, February 2, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, C.Ss.R. served as the Chief Celebrant and Homilist for this year’s Black History Month Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, NJ. The annual Mass was sponsored by the African American, African and Caribbean Apostolate of the Archdiocese of Newark. Read More

More than 50 years ago, the Civil Rights era and the changes of Vatican II combined in West Louisville to generate new energy in black Catholic life. Charles David (Cn. 219), a long-time parishioner of St. Marin de Porres Church experienced it first-hand and called it a “freeing of the Spirit.” “It was a great time in the church,” he said. “It gave African Americans a sense of belonging in the church.” Read More

Black Catholic communities have been a part of the Church in the Washington, DC area for centuries. But it wasn’t until the height of the Civil War that black Catholics in DC began the process of founding a parish of their own— with the help of President Abraham Lincoln. In the 16th and 17th century, Spanish laws in North America freed slaves who converted to Catholicism. Some of these freed slaves and their descendants formed their own settlement in the region that would become Florida. Read More

Leonardo Defilippis, the president and founder of Saint Luke Productions in the state of Washington, remembers when he had a chance a few years ago to approach Archbishop José H. Gomez to discuss a play he had recently completed and had been touring. “Tolton: From Slave to Priest” chronicles the life and times of Father Augustus Tolton, born into slavery in 1854 before becoming the first African American Roman Catholic priest. Since Defilippis wrote and directed it, it has been presented more than 100 times since it debuted in 2017. Read More

The month of February is recognized in the United States and Canada as Black History Month. While the civil commemoration in America officially began in 1970, its origins date back to at least 1926 when historian Carter G. Woodson called for the observance of "Negro History Week" during the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. That the country needs to explicitly set aside a time of recognition for black history unveils the uncomfortable truth that white people avoid facing and that people of color reckon with daily: structural racism is real, white supremacy is normative and the stories we tell about ourselves as a nation — and as a church — are skewed in such a way as to subjugate and erase black oppression and white privilege. Read More

Sitting off St, Peter's Square next to the Vatican, the beautiful 19th century palace would have commanded top dollars if it were a hotel, but Pope Francis had other ideas, so it has been converted into a homeless shelter. Read More

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a time to reflect on King’s vision and his example for everyone as a Christian leader who engaged in effective social action, said a leader with a historically African-American Catholic fraternity. “The dream that Dr. King so eloquently professed in his ‘I Have a Dream Speech’ was about the bettering of humanity,” Percy J. Marchand, an associate director of the Knights of Peter Claver, told CNA Jan. 17. “As imperfect sons and daughters of the perfect Creator, we must each consistently do our best to live out the principles upon which Dr. King expounded.” Read More