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Columns::October 28, 2002
Weekly Reader
Prof tells history of ‘pioneering’ nuns
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$49.95 (cloth) $19.95 (paper)
University of North Carolina Press |
Founded in Baltimore in 1828 by a French Sulpician priest and a mulatto Caribbean immigrant, the Oblate Sisters of Providence formed the first permanent African-American Roman Catholic sisterhood in the United States. It still exists today. Exploring the ante-bellum history of this pioneering sisterhood, Persons of Color and Religious at the Same Time shows the centrality of race in the Oblate experience. It is written by Diane Batts Morrow, UGA assistant professor of history and African-American Studies.
By their very existence, the Oblate Sisters challenged prevailing social, political and cultural attitudes. White society viewed women of color as lacking in moral standing and sexual virtue; at the same time, the sisters’ vows of celibacy flew in the face of conventional female roles as wives and mothers. But the Oblate Sisters’ religious commitment proved both liberating and empowering. They inculcated into their communal consciousness positive senses of themselves as black women and as religious women.
Strengthened by their spiritual fervor, the sisters defied the inferior social status white society ascribed to them and the ambivalence the Catholic Church demonstrated toward them. They successfully persevered in dedicating themselves to spiritual practice in the Roman Catholic tradition and their mission to educate black children during the era of slavery.
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