Tolton pilgrimage honors priest on the path to sainthood

QUINCY — Area Catholics and others made a pilgrimage from St. Peter Church to the burial site of Father Augustus Tolton Wednesday commemorate the 128th anniversary of his death.

Father Tolton is recognized as the first black priest in the United States and the cause for his beatification and canonization of sainthood is ongoing in Rome.

Father Daren Zehnle, director of Campus Ministry and adjunct professor at Quincy University presided over the ceremony at St. Peter Cemetery at 33rd and Maine.

Father Tolton was born into slavery in 1854. In 1862, his mother and siblings made a daring escape across the Mississippi River to Illinois. After settling in Quincy, he went to school at St. Peter’s Catholic School. Tolton later went to seminary in Rome because no American seminary would accept a black man. Thinking he would minister in Africa, once he was ordained, he was instead sent back to Quincy, where he arrived to thousands of supporters. Known for his incredible singing and homilies, Tolton spent several years in Quincy before transferring to Chicago. He died of heatstroke at the age of 43 on July 9, 1897, and is buried at St. Peter’s Cemetery in Quincy. Most recently, Pope Francis declared him “Venerable” on June 12, 2019, the second step of four to becoming a saint in the Catholic Church.

Randy Phillips captured the event for Muddy River News.