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Low number of black Americans following religious life

Sister Kibeho first female following religious life from Christ the King Church

Published: January 9, 2016   

By Aprille Hanson
Associate Editor

Sister Kibeho, (left) a 22-year-old from Christ the King Church in Little Rock, is a novice with the Servants of the Lord & Virgin of Matara in Maryland. On Dec. 7, she received her habit during an investiture ceremony in Washington, D.C. Also pictured from left: Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C.; Msgr. Francis Malone, pastor of Christ the King Church; and Mother Mary of the Sacred Heart Gaes, provincial superior.

The first in a two-part series on religious vocations for black Catholics

LaVerta Straham thought she had it all worked out — attend college, get her degree and be a professional dancer at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York where she spent two summers training.

Straham, 22, who grew up attending Christ the King Church in Little Rock and attended Christ the King School from sixth to eighth grade, began feeling the stirrings of God’s call as a senior at Central Arkansas Christian High School.

“I really saw the faith lived out,” at Christ the King, Straham said, but added, “At the Church of Christ high school that’s when I started questioning my faith, but that’s also when I came back to the Church more deeply and that’s because of the fundamentals I learned at Christ the King.”

But entering religious life was a step that was hard to see as a reality at first because she is black.

“Before I entered the convent I didn’t meet any black sisters. I didn’t really see the black Catholic Church in general. I think it was honestly because I was in the South,” she said. “There is a black community of Catholics, especially in the northeast.”

Donna Grimes, assistant director of African American Affairs for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Straham’s experience of little exposure to black Catholics following religious life is common to many other young black men and women across the country.

“It’s hard to pass on the faith when young people coming along, young African Americans, don’t see people who look like them as a model,” Grimes said.

Straham, now Sister Mary Our Lady of Kibeho, is a novice in Maryland with the Servants of the Lord & Virgin of Matara and on Dec. 7 received her habit during an investiture ceremony. Msgr. Francis I. Malone, pastor at Christ the King in Little Rock, traveled to Washington, D.C., to concelebrate the Mass. Sister Kibeho is the first female student from Christ the King School in Little Rock to enter religious life.

Sister Kibeho is just one of several young black Americans throughout the United States figuring out their place in the Catholic Church after a difficult history, but bright future.

A DARK HISTORY AND CHANGE

Low numbers Grimes said can be traced back to the dark documented history in the Church, centering around three R’s: “resistance, reluctance and religious orders.”

“Historically, there was a resistance and reluctance to evangelize to young African Americans. Vocations were discouraged; baptizing was in question for enslaved people and free people,” before the civil rights movement and after, Grimes said. “Even beyond that, no religious orders, predominantly white ones, would knowingly accept a woman of color, African Americans, into their orders, none, until the mid-20th century. Mexicans and Native Americans have similar stories.”

Grimes said occasionally a black woman could “pass for white” and enter religious life, though if the truth was found out they would be “expunged from the records.”

Many formed their own orders, including the Oblate Sisters of Providence, 1829; Sisters of the Holy Family, 1837; and the Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, 1916, later becoming part of the Franciscan family.

“It’s an interesting history, a painful history as well,” Grimes said. “With Catholics being a minority in the country anyway, they were very afraid to take on new issues … there were bold people in the 18th, 19th, century but they were few and far between,” standing up for racial rights in the Church. “The first known African-American priest had to be ordained in Rome, not in the U.S.”

The priest, Father Augustus Tolton (1854-1897), who was born into slavery in Missouri, is one of four black American candidates for sainthood. It’s another step forward, as there are no American-born black saints in the Church.

Now, Grimes said many religious orders “have started to make a real outreach” to the black community, as society has become more evolved in race relations. However, there are still prejudices and misunderstandings that can hinder retention.

“The formation process is very difficult. There are problems within the Church as there are in society,” Grimes said. “You’re rubbing shoulders, coming into contact with people very different than you and that can lead to a lack of understanding.”

One problem is that at times, young black Americans joining a religious order are “pretty much told to leave their black culture at the door.”

“The way we speak, the choices we make, our preference for food, music, that is so much in our subconscious,” Grimes said. While religious life at its core means giving up one’s own life for Christ, she said the lines are sometimes blurred on whether a request to act differently is “spiritually important or personal prejudice.”

BLACK CATHOLICS IN ARKANSAS

There are three predominantly black churches in Arkansas, including St. Bartholemew in Little Rock, St. Augustine in North Little Rock and St. Peter in Pine Bluff.

“I think it’s important to let people know our presence is there,” said Verdell Bunting, president of the Diocesan Council for Black Catholics in Little Rock. “There are black Catholics in the state of Arkansas. I know in our church specifically (St. Bartholomew) it’s not all black, we have other races represented as well.”

Bunting said annual events like the Martin Luther King Jr. Mass held at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock at 4:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 9 help spread awareness.

“With us doing that Mass at the Cathedral, that in itself is getting the word out that black Catholics are here,” Bunting said.

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