Xavier University to Promote African American Sainthood Causes

New Orleans, LA – Xavier University of Louisiana has announced a new initiative to promote the canonization of African Americans. A new resource center will be spearheaded by the university’s Institute for Black Catholic Studies and will compile and exhibit educational works about the lives of African Americans whose sainthood causes are open.

Xavier President Reynold Verret said the stories of these African Americans are important to every Catholic, no matter their background. “It speaks profoundly … to the resilience of Catholic faith, even as it was oppressed in the 19th and 20th century,” he said.

The resource center will initially display information on five black Catholics from the 18th to 20th centuries: Julia Greeley, Pierre Toussaint, Mother Mary Lange, Henriette Delille, and Father Augustus Tolton. It will also include information on St. Katharine Drexel, who founded Xavier University of Louisiana, and St. Kateri Tekakwitha. Other stories of potential saints will be added in the future, as new causes open.

In addition to advancing the canonization causes of holy men and women, Verret said the project is established “to promote the stories of those saints to the larger Catholic community.”