Father Augustus Tolton

The Slave Who Became the First African-American Priest

Plot

In these fascinating pages, popular author and speaker Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers tells the gripping story of Augustus Tolton, who valiantly overcame a series of seemingly insurmountable challenges - birth into slavery, his father's death, abject poverty, and even being denied acceptance by every Catholic seminary in America - to become the first African-American priest. Despite the hardships placed on Fr. Tolton by a culture rooted in racial hatred, he became a tireless messenger of the gospel, plunging into the Deep South, where segregation was decreed by harsh laws, and penetrating even the hardest of hearts with the richness, beauty, and truth of the Catholic Faith. He was a beacon of hope to black Catholics in the nineteenth century who were trying to find a home in the Church in America. He was a visionary who saw beyond race and politics, teaching that the Catholic Church wants to free us not just from slavery, but from slavery to sin. Amidst great persecution, Fr. Tolton showed us that being configured to Christ means emptying ourselves so that God can fill us, exposing the weakest parts of who we are so that God can make us strong, becoming blind to the ways of this world so that Christ can lead us, and dying to ourselves so that we can rise with Christ. All who seek to be formed more perfectly to Christ have a role model in Fr. Tolton, a persevering and holy man who sought above all the salvation of souls. Book jacket.