
Augustine was born in Missouri to Peter Paul Tolton and Martha Jane Chisley in the year 1854.They were slaves of a white man named Stephen Elliott who suffered under the delusion that men, women, and children could be held in bondage simply because of the color of their skin. Perhaps Stephen rationalized that the men in charge had made the decision and it wasn't his place to rebel against the status quo but, ultimately, he was a part of the problem if for no other reason than his refusal to be a part of the solution. All of this meant that their four children--Charles, Augustine, Cordella, and Anna--were born into the slavery that held their parents captive. The Elliot family was Roman Catholic and insisted upon all of their slaves being baptized into the faith of their choosing. Peter Paul and Martha Jane had developed a faith of their own in a Lord who promised liberation to those held captive and life to those who dwelt with death. Their children were raised in this faith and began to claim it as their own long before Peter Paul escaped slavery to help put an end to the heinous institution. Peter Paul joined the Union army at the beginning of Civil War and served as best he knew how to put an end to the system that so many others refused even to acknowledge as problematic. Peter Paul died in some battle now lost to the fog of history.

Augustine received an excellent education and professed a calling to become a priest like the man who had given him a chance at a better life. He applied to seminaries throughout the United States and was rejected from each and every one. So, instead, Father McGirr talked to those he knew in Rome about Augustine received his education at the Pontifical Urbaniana University. He was admitted and received the training he needed to enter the priesthood. He became fluent in Italian, Latin, and Greek and, finally, was ordained to the priesthood in Rome in the year 1886. He returned to the United States where he tried to establish a parish in Quincy, Illinois, but he was resisted heavily by both the white and the black residents of the town. He stood in the middle and insisted that both black and white citizens were welcome in the church even as both sides insisted that the other should be outcast.Eventually, he was transferred to Chicago where he was able to establish a parish church that had over 600 parishioners. In this place they welcomed people of any color and nationality in a hope to banish the status quo of the past from the minds of men and women set free from the evils of slavery. When Augustine died in 1897 his body was taken back to Quincy and buried in the priest's cemetery next to St. Peter's Roman Catholic church where his new life had begun in the ashes of slavery left behind.
No comments:
Post a Comment