The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-05-09

The Catholic Church and the Negro!
1t is a story as old as Christianity it.
self; and as long as the Church full
fills her sublime and transcending mis-
sion of helping men to realize the ef-
fects of the redemption, and the Negro
race remains an integral portion of the
human family, so long will the Church
consider it her urgent duty to reach
out and draw to her maternal bosom
the thousands, nay millions, of my mis-
guided and outraged people. And this
must be so, for the mission of the
Church has for it's primary aim the
interests of the soul which form the
foundation of the lasting relationship
between her and the Negro race-a re-
lation which is idealized in the we'll
being of that element IN the compost
tion of every human being which
makes him the most perfect of Gods
terrestrial creation.
Thus, in pursuance of the Divine
command, 60 teach all nations we
can go back to the dawn of Christian
ity and there begin to trace the efforts
of the Church to reach Africa, from
Philip and the Eunuch ION the way
that goeth down from Jerusalem into
Gaza," through Mark and Athanasius
in Egypt, Augustine and Cyprian in
Numidia, and in much later times
through the missionaries of the various
religious orders and societies who
amid perils and hardships untold
planted the Cross on the western, east
ern and southern shores of Africa, and
having penetrated into the Hinterland
are now conducting fourishing mis-
sions with native priests among the
clergy and men of ebony hue enjoying
the honors of the altar.
The Church and Slavery.
Always the avowed enemy of the
traffic in human beings because ii
thwarted her efforts to accomplish heI
sacred mission to men, the Church
suffered severe setbacks during the
period when, in the interests of moral
ity and justice, she waged war with
the might and greed of slave traders
on both sides of the Atlantic. Torn by
the religious upheaval of the sixteenth
century, in which the Church was the
target for attack from every quarter
how Christendom might have viewed
with CONSERVATION the tenacity anC
courage of the vanguards of the mis-
sionaries of prosecuted Rome landing
on American shores in quest of fresf
victories for the Cross in the new
world and unstinted in their sacrifice
of comforts, family ties, and ever
blood, if treasure they had none.
But if in this manifestation of Apos
tolic zeal we discern the Spaniard anC
the Indian as the immediate objective
of the brethren of Las Casas and Alon
so del Espinal, the Negro slaves amons
whose forbears the Society of Jesu:
labored in Western Africa were no lesi
tenderly cared for by the youthful sol
of Ignatius, Peter Claver, whose char
ity and devotion to the suffering black!
of Carthegena made him an object O.
bitter hatred and supreme seorr
among his own people whose opposi
tion extended to absolute refusal tt
be present in church wherein the
good missionary assembled the slaves
a condition bordering on which, for
sooth, we may not have to try yer!
hard to find in some of the churche.
of today.
Maryland Missionaries.
Nine years after Peter Claver begal
his work in the mart of Cathegena
the first slave trader unburdened it!
cargo of human chattel at a port no
so far away from this city. Tn,
British were then the masters of thi
littoral and any student of histor.
knows what chances we're afforded tn,
Catholic missionary for evangelisti
purposes. Circumscribed and perse
cuted the impoverished missionar,
was hampered in every respect. Still
the presence of six churches and $500
colored Catholics in the Diocese o