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James Augustine Healy
Bishop of Portland
Church Catholic Church
Diocese Diocese of Portland
Appointed February 12, 1875
Reign ended August 5, 1900 (his death)
Predecessor David William Bacon
Successor William Henry O'Connell
Orders
Ordination June 10, 1854
Consecration June 2, 1875
by John Joseph Williams
Personal details
Born (1830-04-06)April 6, 1830
Jones County, Georgia, U.S.
Died August 5, 1900(1900-08-05) (aged 70)
Portland, Maine, U.S.
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James Augustine Healy (April 6, 1830 – August 5, 1900) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He was the first African American to serve as a Catholic priest or bishop.

Born a slave into the Healy family of Georgia, he was the son of a White plantation owner and a mixed-race slave. He was ordained a priest in 1854 and served as Bishop of Portland, Maine, from 1875 until his death in 1900. His siblings Patrick, Michael, and Eliza would also become known for their achievements.

With their predominantly European ancestry, Healy and his siblings all passed for White and identified as such. Augustus Tolton (1854–1897) was the first publicly known Black Catholic priest in the United States, and Harold Robert Perry (1916–1991) was the country’s first openly Black Catholic bishop.

Early life and family

See also: Healy family

James Augustine Healy was born in Jones County, Georgia, near the city of Macon, on April 6, 1830. His father, Michael Morris Healy (1796–1850), was a native of County Roscommon, Ireland, and became a wealthy cotton planter after settling in Georgia, owning more than 1,500 acres of land near the Ocmulgee River as well as 49-60 slaves. James's mother was a mixed-race enslaved woman named Mary Eliza (c. 1813–1850), whom Michael had purchased for $3,700 along with her family and whom he took as his common-law wife in 1829.

James was the eldest of their ten children. His siblings were:

In his will, Michael Healy referred to his wife as "my trusty woman, Eliza, mother of my...children." Due to the partus sequitur ventrem principle in slave law, children inherited the legal status of their mothers; therefore, the Healy children were born into slavery. Michael was unable to directly free his wife and children as manumission required an act of the Georgia General Assembly in exceptional circumstances. Before their deaths a few months apart in 1850, the Healys planned to relocate to the free North with their youngest children.

Racial identity

Due to their largely European ancestry, the Healy children were light-skinned enough to pass for White and they did not publicize their Black heritage. James and his siblings were recorded as White in official documents, such as census records and death certificates. In later years, James discouraged biographies and variously described his mother as the daughter of an aristocratic Virginia family or from Santo Domingo. However, their mixed race was known to some; writing to Archbishop John Hughes in 1859, Bishop John Bernard Fitzpatrick mentioned that Sherwood Healy "has African blood and it shews [sic] distinctly in his exterior."

Some three decades after the last of the Healy children died, Jesuit sociologist Albert S. Foley published a book in 1954 that detailed their biracial background.

Education

As slaves under the law, the Healy children were prohibited from attending school. In 1837, at age seven, James was taken North by his father and enrolled at a Quaker school in Flushing, New York City, which was associated with the Old Quaker Meeting House. He continued his education at another Quaker school in Burlington, New Jersey, where he excelled in mathematics and apprenticed to a surveyor. After his father became acquainted with Bishop John Bernard Fitzpatrick of Boston, Healy was sent to the College of the Holy Cross, a newly founded Jesuit school in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Healy entered Holy Cross in August 1844 and would later recount in his diary, "Today, 5 years ago I entered this college. What a change. Then I was nothing, now I am a Catholic." He and his brothers Hugh, Patrick, and Sherwood were baptized at Holy Cross in November 1844, alongside the sons of Catholic convert Orestes Brownson. James spent his school vacations with the families of local priests in Boston and Cambridge. He was named valedictorian of the first graduating class at Holy Cross in 1849.

Priesthood

Following his graduation from Holy Cross, Healy decided to enter the priesthood and was accepted into Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Montreal. After three years in Canada, he went to France in 1852 to complete his theological studies at the Sulpician Seminary in Paris. While there, Healy was ordained a priest on June 10, 1854 at Notre-Dame Cathedral by the Archbishop of Paris, Marie-Dominique-Auguste Sibour. He thus became the first African American to join the Catholic priesthood; however, Augustus Tolton, who was born that same year, would become the first Catholic priest "publicly known to be black" when he was ordained in 1886.

When Healy returned to the United States in August 1854, he was assigned to the Diocese of Boston. Knowing there were rumors about his heritage in Boston, he expressed his apprehension about serving there to a confidante: "The mercy of God has placed a poor outcast on a throne of glory that ill becomes him. If I could have been as safe elsewhere as here, I should have desired never to show my face in Boston." He was appointed an assistant at St. John's Church in the North End and the House of the Angel Guardian for homeless boys. This was followed by appointments as personal secretary to Bishop Fitzpatrick (December 1854) and chancellor of the diocese (June 1855), which gave him a significant role in diocesan affairs. He also served as rector of Holy Cross Cathedral (1862-1866).

During the Civil War, Healy supported the Union but was opposed to the Radical Republicans' plans for Reconstruction, which he believed would lead to "the super-elevation of the negro." In 1865 he helped establish the Home for Destitute Catholic Children to care for children who had been left fatherless or totally orphaned by the war.

In March 1866, when the late Bishop Fitzpatrick was succeeded by John Joseph Williams, the new bishop named Healy as pastor of St. James Church, the largest Catholic congregation in Boston at the time. In that position, he helped found the House of the Good Shepherd for homeless girls and successfully lobbied against legislation in the Massachusetts General Court to tax Catholic churches. As both rector of the cathedral and pastor of St. James, Healy was succeeded by his brother Sherwood.

Bishop of Portland

On February 12, 1875, Healy was appointed the second Bishop of Portland, Maine, by Pope Pius IX. He received his episcopal consecration on the following June 2 from Archbishop Williams of Boston, with Bishop Francis McNeirny of Albany and Bishop Patrick Thomas O'Reilly of Springfield serving as co-consecrators, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. As such, he was the first Black Catholic bishop in the United States. It would be 90 years before Harold Robert Perry became the first publicly recognized individual to hold that distinction.

At the time of Healy's appointment, the Diocese of Portland encompassed the entire states of Maine and New Hampshire. At the beginning of his tenure in 1875, the diocese contained 52 priests and 58 churches to serve a Catholic population of 80,000. By the time of his death in 1900, there were 92 priests, 86 churches, and 96,400 Catholics. The growth of his diocese was extensive enough that he supervised the founding of the Diocese of Manchester when it was split from Portland in 1885.

Early into his tenure, Healy became involved in a controversy with one of his priests, Rev. Jean Ponsardin of Biddeford. Healy suspected that financial misdeeds were being committed by Ponsardin, who had been receiving money to build a new church but only had a basement and unfinished exterior walls to show for it after four years. The bishop refused to pay anything further and suspended the priest in October 1877. Ponsardin appealed to Rome, which created gossip among Vatican officials. Healy settled the matter by agreeing to pay any debts incurred by Ponsardin on the condition that the priest leave the diocese. The matter caused such embarrassment for Healy that he submitted his resignation to Pope Leo XIII in 1878 but it was rejected.

Healy was one of the Catholic Church's most vocal opponents of the Knights of Labor, a national labor union. He viewed the organization as a secret society and was the only Catholic bishop in America who threatened to excommunicate any Catholic who joined its ranks. However, he withdrew his prohibition after Leo XIII issued Rerum novarum in 1891 and endorsed the right of workers to form unions.

Healy participated in the third Plenary Council of Baltimore from November to December 1884, and was appointed to serve on the Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians. However, he consistently refused the invitations of the Colored Catholic Congress, saying, "We are of that Church where there is neither...barbarian nor Scythian, slave nor freeman, but Christ is all and in all." Healy celebrated his silver jubilee as a bishop in June 1900 and was given the honorary title of assistant to the papal throne by Leo XIII on the occasion.

Healy died in Portland on August 5, 1900, at age 70. He is buried at Calvary Cemetery, where a Celtic cross honoring his Irish heritage marks his grave.

Legacy and honors

  • Healy's papers are held by the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester; the Archives of the Archdiocese of Boston; and the Archives of the Diocese of Portland, Maine.
  • The Archdiocese of Boston, Office for Black Catholics, has designated the Bishop James Augustine Healy Award to honor dedicated black parishioners.
  • In 1975, Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan of Atlanta and Bishop Raymond Lessard of Savannah donated a bronze plaque to be dedicated in Jones County, Georgia, commemorating the Georgia-born Healy.
  • The Healey Asylum in Lewiston, Maine, was named in his honor.

See also

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