Religion: Saints’ Fellow Citizens

Led by 32 Negro policemen and a dozen frock-coated ushers, some 4,000 U. S. Negroes marched briskly into St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan one day last week. At the head were the Knights of St. John, perspiring in gay full dress and cocked hats with long white feathers. St. Benedict’s Commandery followed, with its Ladies’ Auxiliary in blue-sashed white dresses; then small pickaninnies, the white-veiled Children of Mary, led by Negro nuns; at the end, many a Negro member of the Holy Name and St. Vincent de Paul societies. The 4,000 Negroes were reverently proud. Delegates to the eighth annual convention of the Federated Colored Catholics of the U. S., they were attending the first organized all-Negro mass ever celebrated in great St. Patrick’s.

In the chancel awaited some 50 white priests (New York City has no black ones). Also present were three monsignori and Auxiliary Bishop John J. Dunn. Presently 30 more priests were to be called in, so great was the crowd. Bishop Dunn celebrated mass, during which the Knights of St. John stood before the altar rail as a guard of honor, with their shiny swords uplifted during the consecration. The Negro communicants were greeted by Monsignor Michael J. Lavelle, St. Patrick’s rector, who said: “You are fellow citizens with the saints. . . . There is no one that we welcome with more outstretched arms than we do you.” They heard Bishop Dunn read a cablegram of blessing from Pope Pius XI, adding “I am thrilled to my very soul. . . .” Then the 4,000 Negroes went to a communion breakfast at the Palm Garden, Eighth Avenue.

There are in the U. S. some 250,000 Negro Catholics, of whom about 100,000 are represented by the Federation. There are three communities of Negro sisters: the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the Sisters of the Holy Family and the Franciscan Handmaids of Mary; many all-Negro parishes and parochial schools.

Negroes venerate especially: the Martyrs of Uganda; St. Benedict the Moor, 16th Century slaveborn monk; and St. Peter Claver, S. J., famed for his work in the early slave markets in Cartagena.

Chief accomplishment of last week’s convention in New York was to change the Federated Colored Catholics’ name to the National Catholic Federation for Promotion of Better Race Relations. Henceforth white clergy and laity will enter officially into the group’s activities.