The Diocese of Springfield announced plans on April 29 to convert the former St. Boniface Church in Quincy into a shrine to Venerable Augustus Tolton, the first recognized native-born Black priest ordained for the United States.
Tolton grew up in Quincy, Illinois, after his mother fled slavery in Missouri with him and his siblings in 1862, during the Civil War. He returned to Quincy in 1886 to minister as a priest before moving to Chicago in 1889 in response to persecution by priests and other local Catholics in Quincy.
Tolton celebrated his first Mass in Quincy in the original St. Boniface Church. The current church closed in 2020.
The Archdiocese of Chicago opened Tolton’s cause for canonization in 2010. He ministered to the Black Catholic community on the South Side and died on July 9, 1897, in the former Mercy Hospital. He requested that he be buried in St. Peter Cemetery in Quincy.
“This is an extraordinary moment not only for our area, but for the Catholic Church in our country,” said Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki. “To restore St. Boniface as a shrine dedicated to Father Tolton means preserving sacred history while creating a living place of prayer, hope and renewal — all tied to a holy priest whose life is an example of authentic discipleship of Christ. This shrine will place Quincy firmly on the spiritual map for pilgrims seeking inspiration, healing and deeper faith.”
A committee independent of the diocese is raising $5 million to renovate the church and its grounds before the shrine will open to pilgrims.
Tolton was born in slavery in 1854 on a plantation near Brush Creek, Missouri. His father escaped to try to join the Union Army during the Civil War. In 1862, Tolton’s mother also escaped with her three children by rowing them across the Mississippi River and settling in Quincy.
Tolton had to leave one Catholic school because he and his family, as well as parochial leaders, were threatened and harassed because of his race; he found a haven at St. Peter parish and school, where he learned to read and write and was confirmed at age 16.
He was encouraged to discern his vocation to the priesthood by the Franciscan priests who taught him at St. Francis College, now Quincy University, but could not find a seminary in the United States that would accept him.
Tolton eventually studied in Rome and was ordained for the Propaganda Fidei in 1886, expecting to become a missionary in Africa. Instead, he was sent back to Quincy, where he served for three years before coming to the Archdiocese of Chicago.
He spearheaded the building of St. Monica Church, which was dedicated in 1894, as a parish for Black Catholics..
Tolton died after suffering heat stroke on a South Side street on July 9, 1897.
Pope Francis advanced Tolton’s sainthood cause on June 11, 2019, when he issued a decree declaring him “venerable.”
For information about his cause, visit tolton.archchicago.org.
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Contributing to this story was Andrew Hansen, Diocese of Springfield