When Dr. Ansel Augustine moved from New Orleans to assume the post of executive director of Cultural Diversity and Outreach for the Archdiocese of Washington in March 2002, he said he found a Black Catholic community here that has “a passion for serving God and His people.”

In calling on various ethnic communities to “empower one another by sharing our stories and sharing our gifts,” Augustine said that among Black Catholics “there is an energy for this work… this is our work. We are journeying together.”

The Archdiocese of Washington has more than 655,000 Catholics celebrating their faith in 139 parishes in the District of Columbia and five Maryland counties: Montgomery, Prince George’s, Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s.

Augustine estimates that nationwide, roughly six percent of Catholics are Black, but in the Archdiocese of Washington Black Catholics make up between 10 and 13 percent of the Catholic population here. That means an estimated 65,500 and 85,000 Black Catholics worship in this archdiocese. Nationwide, Black Catholics number about 3 million out of a total Catholic population of approximately 51 million. 

Black Catholics include those of African descent as well as those from the Caribbean and “some of our Latino brothers and sisters,” Augustine said, adding that “the fastest growing (segment of Black Catholics) is African Catholics moving into the country.”

The Archdiocese of Washington has witnessed important events in Black and Black Catholic history.

In 1858, St. Augustine Parish in Washington was founded by free men and women of color, including formerly enslaved Black Catholics who were emancipated. It is one of the oldest African American Catholic parishes in the nation and is considered the mother church for Black Catholics in the nation’s capital. Thirty-one years later, in 1889, the historic parish hosted the first Catholic Colored Congress (now known as the National Black Catholic Congress).

The parish school was staffed by the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first order of Black religious sisters in the United States, founded in Baltimore by Mother Mary Lange, whose cause for sainthood is under consideration.

Not long after being named as the archbishop of Washington in 1948, Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle began integrating local Catholic parishes and schools. Schools in this archdiocese were being desegregated years before the Supreme Court outlawed segregates schools in its landmark 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka decision.

In 2017, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, then the archbishop of Washington, issued a pastoral letter titled “The Challenge of Racism Today.” In it, he said “the divisive force of this sin continues to be felt across our land and in our society.” He called on Catholics “to see each other as members of God’s family… (and) to confront and overcome racism.”

In 2018, commemorative plaques were installed at Mount Olivet in Washington, D.C., Queen of Peace Cemetery in Saint Mary’s County, Resurrection Cemetery in Prince George’s County, and Gate of Heaven Cemetery and All Souls Cemetery, both in Montgomery County, to memorialize, honor and remember enslaved men and women who were buried in unmarked graves.

In 2019, Washington Auxiliary Bishop Roy E. Campbell Jr. was elected president of the National Black Catholic Congress (NBCC), which works with member organizations across the country to serve African American Catholics and evangelize un-churched African Americans.

Also that year, then-Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta was named the first African American archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington. Last month, he became this nation’s first African American cardinal.

Most famously, in 1963, the city was the site of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Many of the District’s parishes provided hospitality to out of town marchers, and Archbishop O’Boyle offered the invocation at the gathering.

Marking the 57th anniversary of that march with an Aug. 28, 2020 Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, then-Archbishop Wilton Gregory announced a new archdiocesan initiative, “Made in God’s Image: Pray and Work to End the Sin of Racism.” He said the initiative was created to “fight against racial injustice everywhere.”

“This initiative will include a wide range of pastoral activities and outreach including prayer, listening sessions, faith formation opportunities and social justice work,” he said at that Mass, while urging the faithful to “pray and work together to proclaim Christ’s love for all people and work for justice for all.”

Augustine has been involved in the initiative from the start.

“It is a work in progress,” Augustine said of the initiative. “Because of the pandemic we cannot do all that we want right now, but we have made available resources that can be used on the parish level.”

Because of the restrictions imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19, Augustine said he has hosted Zoom meetings with several deacons, catechists and youth ministers. “Slowly but surely we are doing the best we can to offer resources,” he said.

Augustine’s office offers a “Made in God’s Image: Pray and Work to End the Sin of Racism” website: https://adw.org/living-the-faith/our-cultures/anti-racism-initiative/. “There are resources that can be done on a parish level and a prayer that can be said at Masses and at other gatherings,” Augustine said. “I urge people to pray and use the resources on the site.”

The website includes prayers in various languages, video links to several Masses for racial justice, webinars on racism, the text of the U.S. bishops’2018 document, “Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love - A Pastoral Letter Against Racism”; and links to more than 30 other resources.

The Catholic Standard’s website at cathstan.org has recently launched a Black Catholic Voices series that features interviews with local Black Catholics, beginning with Cardinal Gregory, who reflect on their journeys of faith and offer insights on what Catholics can do to promote racial justice and combat racism.

“The bishops (of the United States) have called racism America’s original sin, How can we do anything if we do not first address this original sin?” Augustine said. “This is what we are called to do as Christians. We are all worthy of dignity because we are all made in the image and likeness of God.”