George Augustus Stallings Jr. facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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| Archbishop of the Imani Temple African-American Catholic Congregation | |
Stallings in 1993
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| Church | Imani Temple African-American Catholic Congregation |
| In Office | 1990–present |
| Orders | |
| Consecration | May 12, 1990 by Richard Bridges |
| Personal details | |
| Born | March 17, 1948 New Bern, North Carolina, US |
| Denomination | Independent Catholicism |
George Augustus Stallings Jr. (born March 17, 1948) is an American religious leader. He was the founder of the Imani Temple African-American Catholic Congregation and was long active in the Black Catholic Movement. He served as a Catholic priest from 1974 to 1989, and was based in Washington, D.C., for many years. He established the Imani Temple as an independent denomination in 1989, making a public break in 1990 with the Roman Catholic Church on The Phil Donahue Show. The Archbishop of Washington excommunicated him that year.
Contents
Biography
Early life and priestly ministry
Stallings was born in 1948 in New Bern, North Carolina, to George Augustus Stallings Sr., and Dorothy Smith. His grandmother—Bessie Taylor—introduced him as a boy to worship in a black Baptist church. He enjoyed the service so much that he said he wanted to be a minister. During his high school years, he began expressing "Afrocentric" sentiments, insisting on his right to wear a mustache, despite school rules, as a reflection of black identity.
To prepare for the priesthood, he attended St. Pius X Seminary in Kentucky and received a BA degree in philosophy in 1970. Sent by his bishop to the Pontifical North American College in Rome, he earned three degrees from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas between 1970 and 1975: the Bachelor of Sacred Theology (S.T.B.), a master's degree in pastoral theology, and a Licentiate of Sacred Theology (S.T.L.).
Stallings was ordained a priest in 1974. His first assignment was as an associate pastor at Our Lady of Peace Church, Washington, D.C. In 1976, at age 28 and two years after ordination, he was named a pastor of St. Teresa of Avila parish in Washington. He was the pastor of this church for 14 years. During Stallings' pastorate, the parish become known for its integration of African American culture and gospel music in the Mass. He was active in the Black Catholic Movement and promoted the integration of African American culture into Roman Catholicism.
In 1985, Stallings secretly bought a private home in Anacostia in violation of the archdiocese rule requiring priests to live in the parish rectory. The Washington Post reported that Stallings had allegedly misused parish funds to renovate his Anacostia house. In 1988, he was transferred to a new position as a diocesan evangelist.
Marriage and conditional consecration
In 2001, Stallings married Sayomi Kamimoto, a 24-year-old native of Okinawa, Japan, in a ceremony in New York City presided over by Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church. Emmanuel Milingo, a former Roman Catholic archbishop who was excommunicated, married a woman from South Korea at the same mass ceremony. Members of the Imani Temple were so upset by Stallings' sudden announcement of his upcoming wedding that some left after services in protest of his "close affiliation with and adoption of doctrine of the Unification Church".
In 2004, Stallings was a key organizer for an event in which Moon was crowned with a "crown of peace". The event was attended by a number of members of the U.S. Congress, a number of whom said that they were misled. It was held at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, the use of which requires a senator's approval. Stallings said the matter of who approved access was "shrouded in mystery".
Stallings was national co-president of the American Clergy Leadership Conference, an affiliate of Moon's Unification Church, and active in efforts to widen Moon's influence among black clergy. He regained attention in 2006 due to his association with Milingo and his group Married Priests Now; Milingo consecrated Stallings, Peter Paul Brennan, and two other Independent Catholic bishops conditionally in a ceremony in September of that year, incurring automatic excommunication.
Denial of Hell
Following the January 2024 death of Pentecostal bishop and Christian universalist Carlton Pearson, Stallings denied the existence of an eternal and physical Hell.
Politics
Stallings made his first leap into politics when he announced for the Ward 6 D.C. Council seat in December 1996. Stallings ran under the nationalist-oriented Umoja Party. He received eighteen percent of the vote.
Works
- I Am ... Living in the Rhythm of the God Within the Key of G Minor (2003, SKS Press). ISBN: 978-0974558608
