June 2 - BlackFacts.com Black History Minute

BlackFacts.com: Learn/Teach/Create Black History

BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for June 2.

James Augustine Healy became the first Black Roman Catholic Bishop in USA.

Healy was one of 10 children born on a Georgia cotton plantation to an Irish immigrant and his common-law wife, a mixed-race slave.

Because Healy and his siblings were legally considered illegitimate and slaves, they were barred from attending school in the state, and their parents were forced to send the boys to schools in the North.

After college Healy attended seminary in Montreal and in Paris and was ordained a priest in 1854. He was the first African American to be ordained a Roman Catholic priest.

He did mission work in Boston, where he opposed state anti-Catholic laws. He then served as chancellor of the diocese and, during the Civil War, as secretary to the bishop.

Healy was consecrated as Bishop of Portland on June 2, 1875, becoming the first African American to be consecrated a Catholic bishop.

Two months before his death, Healy was called as assistant to the Papal throne by Pope Leo XIII, a position in the Catholic hierarchy just below that of cardinal.

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