Saints
Focus on Pierre Toussaint
By Norman Darden

Hardcopy Issue Date: April 2008
Online Publication Date: Apr 18, 2008, 12:56

Pierre Toussaint, the 18^th century Haitian slave, who was freed in New York by his master’s widow after they had fled the burning slave colony, then called Saint Domingue, in 1787, has been declared a candidate for beatification by the Vatican.

This has not made him as famous a black American in the States or in the world as has the fortunes of Barack Obama, the hottest black male in America right now. He, of course, is running for President of the United States with a good chance of success, and may become the leader of the free world.  He is an American black who is internationally famous. Toussaint is an American black who should be as widely known, but he is tied to the Church.

Pierre Toussaint’s life was far more remarkable, far more edifying than Obama’s is since today he is “beatifiable.” Obama does not seem to be on that high road.  Toussaint, on the other hand, lived on the highest plane, attended daily Mass at 6 a.m. for 60 years and provided spiritual and corporal sustenance to the five people in his big New York house. He paid cash for it as soon as his business began to flourish—caring for his wife, his sickly niece, his sicker sister, his crestfallen master and his master’s wife - who owned him until their deaths.  While he paid daily attention to his fancy hairdressing business, he also found time to provide monetary help to Catholic charities and orphanages he supported.

Obama is not living such a noble life, with his heart set on the hereafter.  Toussaint did and did it in a heroic way, happily and with love, and constantly resisted temptations distracting him every day.  All New York society, rich and powerful, and many of the city’s poor, black and white, attended his funeral at Saint Peter’s Church in lower Manhattan in 1853; his death at 87 was a heartbreak to the city that loved him.  The entire New York press covered the funeral.

New York knew about him. The world today knows about Barack Obama because magazines around the world constantly have him on their covers.  Pierre Toussaint has never been a cover story.  The Obama machine in America has plenty of money, having raised in January ’08, $32 million to keep the candidate flush for the grueling campaign ahead.  Today, Pierre Toussaint, 150 years after his death, is barely known anywhere beyond the archdiocese of New York and beyond the readers of a few Catholic publications in Europe, two magazines in England, one each in Spain, Portugal, Germany, and two in Italy.  The Pierre Toussaint Guild in New York has only pennies, and depends heavily on the poor Haitian community in New York.  To raise his stature, so that he could become a household name like Obama, would require millions of dollars and an army of workers like Obama’s.

In October, 1995, Pope John Paul II, from the throne in the sanctuary of New York’s Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, publicly declared Pierre Toussaint Venerable. The great pope made the statement that Pierre Toussaint’s soul was worthy of public veneration.  It was a most impressive recognition, one that should have been published around the world.  People everywhere always need to hear about someone who lived an edifying life, one that they can imitate.

Pierre Toussaint, for some of his time in New York, was an African slave, but his slave status did not shackle his mind. In New York, he became rich as a hairdresser to the rich. He made lots of money, but lived most virtuously, did brave things, succoured orphans as well as many people hit by cholera during the outbreak in New York.  That day the Pope mentioned all his virtues in the Cathedral; the congregation heard it.  Then next day New York Times published a couple of lines about Pierre Toussaint.

 Africa, the continent where the Church is growing rapidly, and thus a place that would love to hear of his witness, heard nothing. The New York Times vilified Pierre Toussaint in a 1991 story, wondering if he was an “Uncle Tom,” a most cruel thing to say about a saintly man.  Pierre Toussaint was often maligned in his day, and he still is.

Pope’s John Paul’s other announcement in the cathedral was that the Venerable Pierre’s body was to be exhumed from a grave in Manhattan and translated, by the wish of the then Archbishop of New York, John Cardinal O’Connor, to the crypt for the archbishops of the archdiocese that lies beneath the main altar of the cathedral, there to lie with the other bishops of the archdiocese—Venerable Pierre, the only layman so distinguished.

For Venerable Pierre to be a candidate for beatification, he has to work a miracle,

attributable to his intercession.  There have been miracles attributed to him but none has held up in Rome.  As a lone black layman of the archdiocese, I decided to throw a wide net over America.  I contacted many major American dailies about Toussaint. I wrote them in January 2000, so that the newspaper editors would have something to publish on an interesting black man in February, designated as Black History Month.  I reasoned that since no real miracle has occurred through Venerable Pierre’s intercession to a black in the archdiocese—I, as one of his “own”, would seek his help.  In February 2000, the Washington Post published a story I had sent on Venerable Pierre.  A reader in “suburban Washington” read the story, prayed to Venerable Pierre, and got a miracle, the real thing!

            The Post ran the story of the miracle later on. A five-year-old little Irish boy in “suburban Washington” had advanced scoliosis, and his mother had to take him to a most distinguished hospital 30 miles away, a week after the Pierre Toussaint story appeared. He was to be outfitted with braces from head to toe, which he would have to wear every day nearly all day.  The mother, who was very sincere read the story, and appealed to Venerable Pierre to help her son.

The day she had to take her son to the hospital arrived.  The doctor, a most distinguished specialist, took another x-ray to make sure he was right about his full braces prescription.  To his surprise, this new x-ray contradicted all of the other x-rays he had taken of the boy’s spine, which up to now had been extremely abnormal.  The new x-ray showed that the boy’s spine was no longer a severe curvature. The “problem” was minuscule and the boy required no braces at all.  The doctor saw the new picture on this x-ray; to him it was unexplainable. The boy’s mother reported the doctor scratched his head for five minutes trying to figure out how this dramatic change could have taken place as it was beyond his comprehension.

But she knew Venerable Pierre had answered her prayers, had miraculously cured her son.  She could not wait to tell the priest at the church.  Rome also had to know.  Rome required a rigorous examination of the case before the Church could comment.  The Church’s authorities and the medical authorities had to be consulted, and other experts had to comment.  The x-ray had to be taken most seriously; it stated facts, not an opinion.  The hospital and the doctor, who did not acknowledge the change to be a miracle, were too distinguished to say publicly it was not a miracle.  The picture in the x-ray was that of a miraculously changed spine; the x-ray did not lie.  Venerable Pierre is powerful!

The dramatic change in the boy’s condition took place overnight. He was once severely handicapped.  He is now normal—the unbelievable cure took place without medical intervention, exactly what the Church needs for proof of a miracle.  Venerable Pierre worked the miracle to take him to the next level, beatification.  Only one genuine miracle was needed for him to be given beatification eligibility.

This is a testament to how well he lived when he was alive, how well he subdued the demons, hatred, the flesh, distortion deliberately sent to confuse him, to disturb the great peace he had; how hard he worked to live exemplarily, to remain clear headed about slavery, to see it as a baptized Catholic, not as something to disturb him but as a way to make him stronger.  How great was his reward for mastering these distressing things and learn how to love his neighbour to so high a degree!  Men in his day, the eminent who loved to talk to him, marveled at how great a man he was.  His great New York society friend for 40 years, the wealthy, very socially prominent Mrs. Philip Schuyler, the doyenne of New York Dutch society, requested at the moment she lay dying, to see not her Protestant minister nor any of her grand friends nor even her closest relatives to comfort her, but Pierre Toussaint to come to her deathbed to help her die peacefully—“saintly Pierre,” she called him.  It was one of the greatt friendships in America.  Her two sons who were also at her bedside had to take Pierre home after their mother died.  Pierre was weeping so copiously, so full of sorrow, so full of grief, showing such sincere sorrow for his friend who had just died.

Living at this Christian level of love requires holiness, which he had since he made his intellect keep control over his passions, a difficult thing to do all day every day, as best he could.  Everybody who knew him wondered how he came into such knowledge—and how he could think so clearly!

Charles Bell, the religion columnist at the Daily News in New York, wrote in his column, May 27, 2001, what every curious person wants to know about Vatican procedures:

“The procedure to become a saint is complex and time-consuming in the Vatican, and can cost as much as $I million in cost of travel, documentation and other expenses to the supporters of prospective saints.  The waiting list is so long the Vatican has lost count.  The Religious Orders around the world always have some one soul of their own they want the Church to declare a saint, and they will find the money to accomplish this goal.

“Canonization usually cannot take place until at least 50 years after a saint’s death.  There are exceptions to the rule.  Philadelphia Pennsylvania’s Katherine Drexel was canonized only 45 years after her death.  She was a nun of a powerful Order, and she was from a very wealthy American family.”

Bell’s banner headline read: “5 from New York pass first of many hurdles.”  In the text that followed it, he wrote, “Toussaint probably is the best bet for canonization.”  Pierre Toussaint, like Barack Obama, has “star power.”  Unlike Obama, he has no “army” of supporters who can be his rearguard and no supporters who can meet the high “production” costs, in his case, raise the cash for his Cause.

Forbes magazine, in its 2007 issue of the richest Americans, stated that Oprah Winfrey was worth $2.5 billion.  The other American black billionaire, Robert Johnson, was dropped from that issue because he is only worth $1 billion!  Neither of the two black billionaires would be interested in Pierre Toussaint. Oprah Winfrey gives to Obama.

However, there are white American Catholics who have deep pockets and who could be sold on Pierre Toussaint. Pierre Toussaint transcends race; the miracle was evidence that he is not a man limited in range, that his love for his neighbour is not restricted to race or tribe but is “Catholic.”

He also has friends.