as a founder, if you will, of the black Catholic community of the Archdiocese of Chicago,” Andrew Lyke, director of the archdiocesan Office for Black Catholics, told CNA April 15.

In 2010, the archdiocese opened Fr. Tolton's cause for canonization, investigating his life and virtues, and he is currently a Servant of God, the first step on the road to being declared a saint.

Fr. Tolton was born a slave in Missouri in 1854 to a Catholic mother, named Martha Jane. She escaped with her children to Illinois. Tolton attended seminary in Rome and was ordained a priest there in 1886 – serving first in Quincy, Illinois and then in Chicago.

In Chicago he founded a black national parish, Saint Monica's, and was very successful in ministering to the city's African-Americanany family, but I do think we need to look at fresh approaches, and Tolton's cause lifts that up.”

“His story is one of heroism, and it helps that cause of priestly vocations from the African-American community. It gives us something to wrap our arms around.”

Lyke's office holds an annual event each autumn to raise funds for Fr. Tolton's canonization in which a Martha Jane Tolton award is given to a woman of the Chicago community.

He noted the “dedication and courage” of Fr. Tolton's mother, and that those same qualities are honored in the recipient of the award each year.

The Chicago pilgrimage remembering Fr. Tolton's life will take place May 11, and will include presentations by Bishop Joseph Perry, and auxiliary of the Chicago archdiocese and postulator of Fr.