Augustus Tolton

Joyce Duriga has served as editor of Chicago Catholic, the official newspaper for the Archdiocese of Chicago, since 2007. Prior to coming to Chicago, she was the associate editor of Our Sunday Visitor, a national Catholic newsweekly. She is the author of Helen Prejean: Death Row’s Nun (Liturgical Press), and her work appears regularly in local, regional, and national publications.

“Augustus Tolton's life is living testimony that God's Holy Spirit dwells fully in all human beings, especially those once deemed mere chattel. A slave who became a priest of God? In the wake of the Civil War what must it have been like for White people to receive the Body of Christ from those very black hands?"Sr. Helen Prejean, CSJ, Author of Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents

• ContentsForeword   ixPreface   xiiiChapter OneFlight from Slavery   1Chapter TwoFinding His Vocation   8Chapter ThreeThe Catholic Church and Slavery   15Chapter FourThe Healys   21Chapter FiveTolton Goes to Rome   29Chapter SixBack to Quincy   39Chapter SevenTrouble Begins   45Chapter EightHis Friend, Daniel Rudd   53Chapter NineOn to Chicago   60Chapter TenFellow Pioneer, Mother Katharine Drexel   69Chapter ElevenSt. Monica’s Becomes a Reality   74Chapter TwelveFinal Days of Father Tolton and St. Monica’s   83Appendix 1Key Dates in Father Tolton’s Life and in American History   89Appendix 2Saint Augustus Tolton?   95Notes   101Index   107