Only African-American Cardinal celebrates mass in New Orleans

By Fritz Esker
Contributing Writer

Wilton Cardinal Gregory, the first and only African-American Cardinal, celebrated the 107th annual Senior National Convention Opening Mass for the Knights of Peter Claver at the Grand Ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel in New Orleans on Sunday, July 16.

Cardinal Gregory is currently the archbishop of Washington, D.C. The Knights of Peter Claver is the world’s oldest and largest Black Catholic lay fraternal order. Its headquarters are in New Orleans. The event was Cardinal Gregory’s first mass in the Crescent City since he was named a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2020.

The mass was televised nationally on EWTN and streamed live on EWTN’s website. Over 1,300 people attended the mass including New Orleans’ Archbishop Gregory Aymond.

Cardinal Gregory was born in Chicago in 1947, and was ordained a priest in 1973 after attending Quigley Preparatory Seminary South, Niles College (now St. Joseph’s College Seminary) of Loyola University, and St. Mary of the Lake Seminary. He became the auxiliary bishop of Chicago in 1983. In 1994, he became the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois. Pope John Paul II appointed Gregory as the sixth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta in 2005.

Cardinal Gregory has historically used his position to address social issues facing Black Americans. In 2001, he was elected as the first Black president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. At that meeting, the Associated Press reported he vowed to speak of racism as a violation of Christ’s teachings and something Catholics of all races must strive to end.

“It’s a sin,” Gregory said in 2001. Gregory also added he hoped his election would send a “message of love” to Blacks of all faiths.

Earlier reporting on Gregory’s career said the lynching of Emmett Till and the public viewing in Chicago of the 14-year-old’s brutalized body played a significant role in shaping Gregory’s racial consciousness.

Recently, Cardinal Gregory has also been an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump. In June 2020, Gregory condemned Trump’s use of the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., for a photo opportunity after tear gas had been used to disperse protestors. In an interview with the Catholic Standard, Gregory said Trump’s rhetoric “deepened divisions and diminished our national life.”

Cardinal Gregory also issued strong statements after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

“The horror of George Floyd’s death, like all acts of racism, hurts all of us in the Body of Christ since we are each made in the image and likeness of God, and deserve the dignity that comes with that existence,” Cardinal Gregory said in a public statement at the time.

This article originally published in the July 17, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.