Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766-1853) |
VENERABLE
PIERRE TOUSSAINT
The
Washington Post
By
Bill Broadway
May 27, 2000
May 27, 2000
The
Vatican office that investigates miracles is considering the case of Joey
Peacock, a 5-year-old Silver Spring boy whose curvature of the spine improved
dramatically after he and his family prayed to Pierre Toussaint for
intercessory healing.
Verification
of a miracle can take years, if not decades, and involves extensive
investigation and documentation, said Monsignor Robert M. O’Connell, a retired
priest in Pelham, N.Y. He submitted Joey’s case to Rome on behalf of Toussaint,
a 19th-century Haitian immigrant who became a wealthy hairdresser and
philanthropist in New York City.
…The
first move toward sainthood for Toussaint occurred in 1996 when he was declared
a “venerable” or virtuously heroic person. One miracle must be attributed to
him for beatification, a second for canonization.
Most
claims for miraculous cures don’t make it past an initial review by the medical
board of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. And that’s where Joey’s
case is different, said O’Connell, who in the last six years has sent evidence
of four other Toussaint-related recoveries to Rome.
All
were rejected outright because, in each case, the person prayed for had
received some type of medical treatment, O’Connell said.
…But
Joey never received treatment for his condition, which was discovered last
October during a routine checkup by his pediatrician.
Suspecting
scoliosis, or lateral curvature and rotation of the spine, the doctor referred
Joey to a radiologist for X-rays. Lisa Peacock, his mother, said the films
showed a 22-degree lateral curve in Joey’s upper spine and a 16-degree curve in
the lower.
On
Nov. 29, Peacock, 35, and her husband, John Peacock, 37, took their son to see
Paul Sponseller, head of pediatric orthopedics at Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore. Sponseller confirmed that Joey had scoliosis, a condition of
uncertain origin that usually appears in adolescents ages 11 to 13.
The
measurement marked on the film showed an upper spine curve of 10 degrees—less
than half the curve in X-rays taken four months earlier. The lower spine curve
was gone, she said. Sponseller said his records indicate slightly different
readings on the lower spine curvature: from 10 degrees in the first X-ray to 5
degrees in the second. A range of zero to 9 degrees is considered normal, he
said.
The
Peacocks, members of Resurrection Parish in Burtonsville, are an active family
who love to snowboard, canoe and camp together. They had hoped for a miracle
for Joey, an otherwise healthy boy who is nearly four feet tall and weighs 55
pounds. And they believed they had gotten it.
“When
I got home, we all looked at the X-rays—the before and after—and couldn’t
believe our eyes,” she wrote in a first-person account in Our Parish Times, a
local Catholic newspaper. “God had worked a miracle for our 5-year-old!”
On
Feb. 28, the family returned to Sponseller, who reviewed the films and
commented, “This is a lot better.” According to Lisa Peacock, the surgeon said
he could not explain the improvement but repeated that the causes of scoliosis
are unknown and suggested that “maybe Joseph wasn’t standing real straight” for
the first X-rays.
Sponseller,
a Catholic, said there was definitely an improvement in Joey’s spine or nervous
system. “[But] whether it’s through divine intervention I can’t say.” Such
changes are “not that exceptional” in young children because their bodies are
very flexible and constantly changing, he said.
Peacock
immediately contacted O’Connell, who as vice postulator for Toussaint’s cause
gathers information to send to a postulator at the Vatican, who in turn
presents evidence to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.
Toussaint
was supported for sainthood by the late Cardinal John O’Connor, archbishop of
New York. A decade ago, the cardinal had Toussaint’s remains moved from a
cemetery to the multilevel crypt at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where 12
archbishops and rectors are entombed—with room for eight more. Last month, O’Connor’s
coffin was placed in the row of dignitaries above Toussaint.
In
March, O’Connell sent documentation of Joey’s apparent healing to Rome and was
amazed to receive a response a month later—a short period in Vatican terms, he
said. And unlike the previous times, when the Congregation for the Causes of
Saints rejected his other cases, it asked for additional evidence and medical
opinions.
This
does not mean the office is ready to launch a full-fledged investigation, but
it does show “encouraging interest,” the monsignor said.
If
the congregation concludes something extraordinary happened, it will direct the
Archdiocese of Washington, the host diocese, to appoint a tribunal to make a thorough
investigation and report to the Vatican.
—Bill Broadway, “Family Takes Boy’s Healing on Faith,” The Washington Post (May 27, 2000)
Now,
paradoxically, the master-slave relationship was fundamentally reversed. For in
the four years that Toussaint had worked as a hairdresser, he had developed a
formidable reputation among the wealthy ladies of upper-crust New York society.
His elaborate coiffures brought in a steady flow of money, and as his name
spread he was able to command ever higher fees for his services. Doubtless the
novelty of being a black hairdresser helped, but in any case Toussaint was
quickly becoming a wealthy man.
With
this wealth he bought his sister’s freedom, paying for her manumission papers.
Yet oddly, he chose not to pay for his own release from slavery. Perhaps even
more oddly, he became the breadwinner for Mme Bérard, paying the bills and
running the household while still, in law at least, her slave. When Mme Bérard
remarried (another bankrupt Saint-Domingue planter), Toussaint simply took
charge of the new husband’s affairs as well.
So
it remained until 1807, when Marie Bérard died. On her deathbed she made her
second husband promise that he would free Toussaint – which he did. Aged 41,
Pierre Toussaint, the celebrated society hairstylist, was finally a free man.
For the previous 16 years he had selflessly worked to care for the ailing Mme
Bérard, seemingly willing to sacrifice his own liberty to repay the kindness he
had been shown as a boy.
Not
that his altruism stopped there. He soon married another former slave from
Saint-Domingue, Juliette Noel, whose freedom he had bought. Together they
opened their home to orphans, offered sanctuary to the poor and destitute, and
donated large sums of money to St Patrick’s Cathedral and to institutions
working with black women and children in New York. When not making money from
his profession, Toussaint was a regular worshipper at St Peter’s Church. His
kindness became proverbial – when his sister died he adopted her sickly
daughter Euphemia, until she too died. His biographers report that he was loved
and respected by his wealthy clientele as well as by those he helped.
…In 1853 Pierre Toussaint died, two years after Juliette. A huge crowd, of both rich and poor, attended his funeral, after which he was buried in Old St Patrick’s alongside Juliette and Euphemia.
Full
of self-sacrifice and humility, this story appears alien to many today, who see
Toussaint as the opposite of his more famous Haitian namesake, as an “Uncle Tom”
figure who embraced the cause of his oppressors. The very idea of the “loyal
slave” is a controversial one, and Toussaint has not been universally admired.
…In
1968 a New York Cardinal introduced the Cause of Toussaint (ie the first step
towards sainthood) in Rome. In 1996 Pope John Paul II declared him Venerable
(the next step). His body, meanwhile, was transferred from Old St Patrick’s to
a crypt in the newer St Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. Then, in 2000,
there was a reported miracle: a five-year-old boy from Maryland was cured of a
curved spine after his mother prayed to the Venerable Pierre Toussaint. He is
now a candidate for beatification, one step before canonisation, or sainthood.
Another proven miracle is required to make him a saint.
©
MEP Publishers | Pierre Toussaint: from slavery to sainthood | Caribbean Beat
Magazine
—James Ferguson, “Pierre Toussaint: from slavery to sainthood,” The New York Times (June 7, 2018)
By
Deborah Sontag
The
New York Times
Feb.
23, 1992
…what
is holiness to some is servility to others.
“The
man was a perfect creature of his times,” said the Rev. Lawrence E. Lucas of the
Resurrection Catholic Church in Harlem. “He was a good boy, a namby-pamby, who
kept the place assigned to him.”
…Msgr.
Robert O’Connell, pastor of St. Peter’s Church in Manhattan, refers to
Toussaint as a good role model “for minority groups and young people with drugs
who sometimes see the decks stacked against them and give up on life easily.”
But
that kind of remark makes some black Catholics wince. “It calls out the
sarcastic, ‘Gee, thanks for finding us a hero’ response,” said Albert Raboteau,
professor of religion at Princeton University.
‘Chosen
Their Own Saints’
Black
Catholics long ago stopped waiting for the church to recognize their saints,
said the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of the St. Sabina Catholic Church on
Chicago’s South Side: “I think black Catholics have chosen their own saints by
now and Rome’s accreditation is unnecessary.”
…Decades
ago, black Catholics looked to busts of St. Martin de Porres, a 16th century
Peruvian-Dominican mulatto, “as witness to the fact that they were authentic
members of the Church,” Professor Raboteau said. “But it doesn’t seem that
symbols of piety, in the present day and age, really address the more pressing
social concerns of black Catholics.
“As
to Toussaint—certainly the guy was charitable, but he was also passive and
servile. His biography doesn’t exactly resonate with the mood of activism of
black Catholics today.”
Black
Catholics would more likely look for “sainthood” candidates among 20th-century
activist figures, like Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Wyatt Turner, educator
and N.A.A.C.P. founding member, or Sister Thea Bowman, educator and evangelist,
some said.
…Toussaint,
who has a small, proud following among religious Haitian-Americans, does not
enjoy overwhelming popular support in Haiti. A ‘Docile Slave?’
“At
the start of the slave revolt, what Toussaint did was flee that fight for
freedom,” said the Rev. Gilles Danroc, a French priest in the Artibonite
Valley. “We have to ask: Is the church encouraging the model of the docile
slave who follows his master and waits patiently for his liberation?”
…‘He
Is Not P.C.’
“The
only problem with Toussaint is that he is not P.C.” or politically correct,
said the Rev. Thomas J. Wenski, director of the Pierre Toussaint
Haitian-Catholic Center in Miami. “He was not naive to the existence of racism
inside and outside the church. That he could still love the church, warts and
all—maybe that’s why JP2 is pushing him.”
…Toussaint
enthusiasts in the New York Archdiocese are aware that Toussaint presents a
controversial choice, but prefer to see clashing opinions more positively. “We
have to be free enough to appreciate and recognize differences,” Bishop Moore
said. “You have in the church a Father Lucas and a Bishop Moore, one advocating
change loudly, the other pushing for it more quietly. In the same way, you can
revere a Pierre Toussaint for his faith and still keep, as I do, a picture of
Malcolm X on your wall.”
—Deborah Sontag, “Canonizing a Slave: Saint or Uncle Tom?” CaribbeanBeat, Issue 111 (September/October
2011)
PRAYER TO VENERABLE PIERRE TOUSSAINT
Venerable
Pierre Toussaint, intercede for us with your prayers before God.
You
are the just man of the Psalms, the tree that yields its fruit in due season
and whose leaves never fade, that still bears fruit even in old age.
Despite
being born into slavery and suffering oppression and injustice, you kept
steadfast to the Catholic faith, forgave your oppressors, worked with
diligence, and lived a life of virtue and good works.
Grant
that we may live our lives according to your holy example, in the time and
place God has assigned to us, with all its difficulties and opportunities,
trials and gifts, good and evil.
Grant
that we may also seek to know and do the God’s will in our own lives, and in
accomplishing God’s will for us, may we also bear fruit in due season.
May
the Lord bless us with a heart of charity and prosper the work of our hands!
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