James Augustine Healy

James Augustine Healy (April 6, 1830 – August 5, 1900) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He was the first known African American to serve as a Catholic priest or bishop. With his predominantly European ancestry, Healy passed for a white man and identified as such.

Born into slavery in the Healy family of Georgia, James Healy was the son of a White plantation owner and a mixed-race enslaved woman. He was later freed, educated overseas, and ordained a priest in 1854. He served as bishop of Portland in Maine from 1875 until his death in 1900.

Early life and family

James Healy was born in Jones County, Georgia, on April 6, 1830. His father, Michael Morris Healy (1796–1850), was a native of County Roscommon, Ireland who became a wealthy cotton planter after settling in Georgia. Healy owned more than 1,500 acres of land near the Ocmulgee River as well as 49 to 60 enslaved people. 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.

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

Hugh Clark Healy (1832–1853)
Patrick Francis Healy (1834–1910), the first African American Jesuit and president of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Alexander Sherwood Healy (1836–1875), a priest and rector of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston
Martha Ann Healy (1838–1920)
Michael Augustine Healy (1839–1904), a captain in the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service and the first African American to command a ship of the U.S. government
Eugene Healy (1842), who died in infancy
Amanda Josephine Healy (1845–1879), a member of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph
Eliza Dunamore Healy (1846–1919), a member of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal and the first African American abbess
Eugene Healy (1849–1914)

In his will, Michael Healy referred to Mary Eliza as "my trusty woman, Eliza, mother of my...children."

In February 2024, Washington Post writer Bryan Greene established through DNA evidence that the Healy siblings were blood relatives of abolitionist Ellen Craft, likely first cousins based on historical accounts. DNA test results showed that a descendant of Martha Healy was the 4th to 8th cousin of three of Crafts' descendants. In 1848, Craft escaped slavery in Macon, Georgia, not far from the Healys' birthplace, disguising herself as a white man traveling with her enslaved attendant, her actual husband. According to Greene's article, S.T. Pickard, the editor of the Portland Transcript, stated in 1893 that Ellen Craft told him that she was the first cousin of Bishop Healy. The 2024 DNA results suggest this 131-year old claim was true.

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. However, their mixed race was known to some; writing to Archbishop John Hughes in 1859, Bishop John Bernard Fitzpatrick mentioned that James' brother Sherwood Healy "has African blood and it shews [sic] distinctly in his exterior." In 1837, at age seven, Michael Healy took James to New York City and enrolled him at a Quaker school in Flushing that was associated with the Old Quaker Meeting House. James continued his education at another Quaker school in Burlington, New Jersey, where he excelled in mathematics and apprenticed to a surveyor. Healy thus became the first known African American to join the Catholic priesthood; however, Reverend Augustus Tolton, who was born in 1854, would become the first Catholic priest "publicly known to be black" when he was ordained in 1886.

Healy returned to Boston in August 1854. Knowing there were rumors about his racial 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."

In March 1866, the new Bishop John Williams named Healy as pastor of St. James Parish, the largest Catholic congregation in Boston.

At the time of Healy's appointment, the diocese encompassed the entire states of Maine and New Hampshire. 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 Healy supervised the founding of the Diocese of Manchester when it was split from the Diocese of Portland in 1885.

Early into his tenure as bishop, Healy became involved in a controversy with one of his priests, Reverend Jean Ponsardin of Biddeford, Maine. Healy suspected that Ponsardin had been stealing money that the diocese gave his parish to build a new church. After four years of construction, the building only had a basement and unfinished exterior walls. Healy refused to give Ponsardin any more money and suspended him from ministry in October 1877. 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.

Death and legacy

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

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 and Bishop Raymond Lessard donated a bronze plaque to be dedicated in Jones County, Georgia, commemorating Healy.
The Healey Asylum in Lewiston, Maine, was named in his honor.

References

Sources

Catholic-Hierarchy.org. Bishop James Augustine Healy
James Healy

James Augustine Healy

Early life and family

Racial identity

Death and legacy

See also

References

Sources

Further reading

External links