Desegregating the Altar: John Slattery & the Josephites

Today marks the death of John R. Slattery (1851-1926), a pioneer in African-American ministry. Born to a wealthy Irish-American family, he studied at Columbia Law School before deciding to pursue the priesthood. He had gotten interested in the work of the Mill Hill Fathers, an English based community working with African-Americans, and he joined them in 1873. Four years later he was ordained.

Father Slattery became pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church in Batimore, the first Black parish in America. Soon he was placed in charge of all the American Mill Hills. In 1888 he opened a seminary which was different from most in that it was integrated. Slattery also did his best to encourage Black vocations at a time when many dioceses and orders discouraged them. This brought him into conflict with ecclesiastical authorities at times, an experience he found quite discouraging.

As Mill Hill focused more of its attention on ministering to the far flung regions of the British Empire, Slattery moved for a separate American community. In 1893 the Josephites were formed, with Slattery as Superior General. Increasingly disillusioned by institutional apathy, Slattery was also undergoing a serious faith crisis. More and more he regarded the Church as “a human institution… the product of a particular evolution of the white race.” In 1904 he resigned from the Josephites, and a short while later from the priesthood. In one of last sermons as a priest, he lashed out against white Catholic racism, especially at his fellow Irish. “The fact,” he said, “is clear that many Catholics are prejudiced against the Negro.” And he included priests and bishops.

In 1906 he got married in an Anglican church in London. He became a lawyer and lived in California. In 1926 he died unreconciled to the Church. In some ways a very unhappy man, Slattery nevertheless did a tremendous amount of good in his active ministry and pointed out the need for encouraging Black vocations at a time when many Catholic leaders were patently afraid to do so. To learn more about Slattery and the Josephites I recommend Stephen Ochs’ magnificent book Desegregating the Altar: The Josephites and the Struggle for Black Freedom, 1871-1960, one of the best books I’ve ever read in the field of Church History.