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From Minor Wisdom [raymondpward.typepad.com] :

Indeed, the Black portion of my family was from Nawlins, and deeply and devoutly Catholic. It's a side of New Orleans and Black American culture in general that I think many people don't know about.

Peace and God bless!

Welcome, Ghosty and Hi Michael (you were on Beliefnet,right?). I chuckled while reading this because the major Black Catholic church in DC is also called St. Augustine's. They are a Washington institution known for having one of the best choirs in the area (no small feat). Standing room only. A strong back and the patience of a saint is needed to get successfully get into one of their services. I have the first but not the second.(If you know anything about DC's parking situation then you know why) I hope St. Augustine's in Nawlins remains open. It would be a shame to lose it.

My neighbors were Black Catholics from Nawlins and they definitely stood out in our predominantly Black Baptist and Methodist area.Louisiana is the second largest place of entry for black slaves in the US (the first being Charleston)and since the French and Spanish settled Louisiana and brought in the slaves it's no surprise that so many Black Catholics are there,particularly Nawlins.

Baltimore surprises me. I wonder if that's recent (islanders?) A large percentage of Baltimore's blacks are from the decidedly Baptist South Carolina. Now, another possibility is there're blacks there from regions of North Carolina that had French slaveholders. That's another thing in the Southern Atlantic seaboard, the Black catholics were usually light skinned and since there are/were serious issues between dark and light skinned, blacks Catholicism was seen as the religion of the snobby. Much too complicated to get into here.

New York is probably a result of all the French and Spanish speaking blacks from the islands.(The population of Black Dominicans has surged in the last two decades.Add to that Haitians)

Ghosty, do you think your Black Catholic relatives would be interested in attending an Eastern Rite service? No poaching in mind,just to see what it's like.

Peace,
Indigo

Cynthia,

Saint Augustine was indeed a favored patron for parishes erected for "Colored Catholics" (as was his mother, Saint Monica). I think that naming these for Saints with "African" roots (albeit North African - suggesting that their racial appearance and skin tone could have been anything from caucasoid through what would someday be "able to pass", to the deepest, richest ebony hue) was a well-intended example of "sensitivity" for the day - as well as offering the example "see, he was one of us, you can be too".

The historic Black community in Baltimore was fairly mixed in origin and not necessarily Catholics, but the Jesuits (they were everywhere ) did significant evangelization among non-Catholic Blacks there. A lot of their success, I think, was related to the fact that the Jesuit efforts paired opportunities for worship and education - a prized commodity in a city that valued and encouraged it, regardless of color or one's status (free, indentured, or slave), despite the occasional schizophrenia of being a city on the line between Northern and Southern sensibilities.

A pair of interesting articles, one on Black Catholics in Baltimore, the other on those in NYC, appeared a while back at ChickenBones [nathanielturner.com] . The NYC piece was originally written back in the 1930s for the quarterly journal of what was then, I think, the National Federation of Colored Catholics (the organization went thru a few name changes before it disbanded sometime around 1980, as I recollect)

Another interesting piece is an interview of Father Cyprian Davis [dioceseofpueblo.com] , who wrote a definitive history of Black Catholicism in the US.

Father Davis makes a point regarding the loss of Black Catholics in the South during the Civil Rights Era, due to closing of the separate Colored Parishes and the accompanying displacement/disempowerment of Blacks suddenly merged into White Catholic parishes, where they lacked the "standing" they had held in their prior parish. My good friend and Army roommate was a Black Catholic from rural LA; Lou talked about having gone from the prestigious altar boy post of MC in his childhood parish to lowly candlebearer in his new parish - and noted that, but for his height, he'd have been further reduced to carrying the incense boat. His Father, as I remember, went from counting the collection to just another usher, poling the basket from pew to pew.

From his descriptions elsewhere, my friend Ghosty's ancestry is a veritable UN of culture, ethnicity, race, and religion. If none of his Black Catholic relatives have ever experienced an Eastern Liturgy, I'll be surprised . Ghosty's own involvement with Ethiopian, Maronite, and Melkite liturgies is enough that, together with his Armenian ancestry, I'm amazed that he still terms himself Latin .

Many years,

Neil

ROFL!

I honestly don't know if any of the Nawlins relatives ever experienced non-Latin Liturgies; they are definately of the Latin stripe. The one Nawlins great-aunt-by-marriage (may she rest with God) that I was closest to was the old-school "If you're staying at my house, you'll be praying the Rosary with me every night at 7" types who received the Eucharist at home.

My Black cousins are also half Armenian (Creole mother from the Nawlins stock, so the U.N. point is especially true in their case :p ), but like the rest of my generation were raised without any major Faith upbringing. The oldest of them has recently been asking me about the family history, however, as he doesn't know much about the Armenian side of things, and I've gently tried to nudge him towards a deeper appreciation of the religious heritage as well as the cultural. He also knows that I'm very into the Catholic Faith, so perhaps our talks will bear fruit. I believe there is an Armenian Orthodox church near his home that I might be able to drag him to the Soorp Badarak sometime

As for why I'm Latin, I'm conciously so. I figure someone's got to stay in the Latin pool and help share the fullness of the Apostolic Tradition and traditions with those who might not ever even get the chance to know about it Plus I'm a sucker for Dominican spirituality

Peace and God bless!

Ghosty,
Ha!Your great aunt by marriage sounds a lot like my southern baptist great aunts-If you're staying at my house Saturday night you will go to church all day tomorrow and not fall asleep and embarrasss me, you hear?Now that I think about it they wouldn't have cottoned to any other religious service except when absolutely necessary.
Well, at least you're aware of Eastern Rite and Orthodox. Though I'm E.Rite bound I'd like to find out a little more about RC too, since E. Rite is affiliated.Seems silly not to know much about your other lung!
Neil, I just remembered hearing before that the Catholic schools in Baltimore offered a good education and were open to Blacks.

Peace,
Indigo

In Honour of the Creole Afro/Franco Catholics of Nawlins, I give you 3 West African influenced Gregorian Chants WITH HAND CLAPPING!@!!!!!

IT'S SPECTACULAR and RARE TOO. ENJOY IT! no copyrights to worry about

http://rapidshare.de/files/37162063...y_of_Black_Music_compilation_CD.zip.html
(get it fast, I think the link is dead after one week)

Christoir, aren't you something! You must lurk in some strange corners of the internet universe. Thanks, I'll check this out.

Peace,
Indigo

For once I agree with Fr. Anthony. I can't believe you guys are having this conversation.

This is just as bad as some of the propoganda I see for race centered groups all over the Community College I go to.

Regardless of skin color every soul shines just as bright in the eyes of our Blessed Lord. I think it would be awsome if Fr. Anthony nuked this conversation.

We all know it is not, so what took 5 pages of postings to say as much.

It seems that there are a few posters who did not watch the video with the same title as this thread. The thread was about the video and the opinions expressed in it. Please watch the video.

I finally watched the entire video I had begun to but forgot to finish it a month ago. Although it didnt teach me very much new information because I've read books on african american religious history before, the presentation and mixture of facts put into 12 minutes was sensational. I didnt know that the Ugandan Orthodox CHurch had it's roots in the 1920's. It is an extremely important video to show many peoplee, it teaches information very unknown to most Western Christians. I had found out about the the ancient african christianity conference through listening to Fr. Moses Berry talk on "Come Receive The Light" Orthodox Radio program.

The Bob Marley song at the end of the video reminds me that Bob Marley died as an Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Christian. today there are about 100,000 members of the Ethiopian Church who have current or former Jamaican citizenship. Just as people often forget there are Roman Catholics of African culture/descent, they also forget there are Eastern Orthodox/Catholic Christians of African descent. The nice thing about the Eastern Christians is that we can say undoubtedly that they were nearly never forced into the religion, unlike the ones from haiti or brazil may have been at the beginning.