Venerable Pierre Toussaint

Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766-1853)

VENERABLE PIERRE TOUSSAINT

FAMILY TAKES BOY’S HEALING ON FAITH
The Washington Post
By Bill Broadway
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) 

…Jean Bérard, who had returned to Saint-Domingue in 1791 as news reached New York of the violent insurrection there, died suddenly. The family fortune – plantation and slaves – had been swept away; the widowed Marie Bérard was effectively penniless and in exile. She sank into depression, dependent on Toussaint and Rosalie.

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) 

CANONIZING A SLAVE: SAINT OR UNCLE TOM?
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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