Tolton pastoral ministry program celebrates 35th anniversary

Today, having Black Catholic laypeople in parish leadership positions is not that uncommon, but that wasn’t the case 35 years ago. That was partly why the Augustus Tolton Scholars program was formed at Catholic Theological Union.

The program, now called the Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program, will mark its anniversary at the Harambee celebration on March 1 at Catholic Theological Union.

The Tolton scholarship program was the first of its kind in the country, said C. Vanessa White, a longtime director of the program and associate professor of spirituality and ministry at CTU.

“I always call the early 1990s the Black Catholic renaissance, where you had a lot of active Black Catholic participation in parishes,” White said. “The challenge, though, is the leadership is still predominately white.”

Leaders often commented that they wanted to hire Black Catholic laypeople to minister in their parishes, but they could not find Black Catholics with the necessary theological background.

After hearing that lament over and over, Dominican Sister Jamie Phelps decided to do something about it. She began conversations with archdiocesan officials, including Wilton Gregory, then an auxiliary bishop, and the leadership of Catholic Theological Union, where she taught, about establishing a scholarship for Black Catholic lay leaders.

Sister Jamie also wanted to include a component that would prepare students for issues that might arise in ministry while earning their degrees.

“So in other words, she thought, don’t just give Black Catholics the money, but how are you forming them to be leaders in the community?” White said. “How are you forming them to deal with issues of racism that may take place when they actually graduate and try to be leaders within the church?”

Out of those discussions was born the Augustus Tolton Scholars Program, which offers full scholarships to Black laypeople through Catholic Theological Union. Since its inception, more than 30 leaders have graduated and gone on to serve in the archdiocese and in leadership positions elsewhere.

One fruit of the programs is a graduate certificate offered in Black theology and ministry at CTU, White said.

By naming the program after Venerable Augustus Tolton, Sister Jamie introduced many Black Catholics to the first native-born Black priest for the United States, said Kimberley Lymore, current director of the Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program.

Lymore herself is a graduate of the program. She had been working as a systems analyst for 17 years when she felt the call to ministry, but figured she would wait until she retired.

She began classes around 1998 at CTU before learning about the Tolton program and becoming a scholar.

In 2000, Father Michael Pfleger asked her to become the pastoral associate at St. Sabina Parish, but she was still working in information technology and was hesitant to take the pay cut that would come with working for the church.

“The Holy Spirit just spoke to me and said, ‘If not now, when? And you’re able. Do you trust me?’” Lymore said. “I have to say, 25 years later, God has provided everything I needed.”

Willa Shegog-Neely, a renewal senior coordinator in the archdiocese’s Department of Parish Vitality and Mission, is also a graduate of the Tolton program at CTU.

“I wanted to be a chaplain, and what drew me to the program was I had spoken to Andrew Lyke (former director of the Office for Black Catholics), and he said, ‘You should do the Tolton program,’” said Shegog-Neely, who is also a bereavement minister at St. Katherine Drexel Parish. “I didn’t know anything about it.”

Having a scholarship enabled her to pursue a second career in ministry because she did not want to incur student loan debt later in her life, she said.

“I certainly wouldn’t have done it without it,” she said. “It was a wonderful opportunity for me to go into my second career. That meant all of the difference in the world.”

For more information, visit ctu.edu/academics/tolton-program-2/.