Paradigm of Tolerance and Charitable Love: Venerable Pierre Toussaint

Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766-1853) by Anthony Meucci, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766-1853)

Image: A 1825 paining of Pierre Toussaint by Anthony Meucci, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

When he saw the crowds, Jesus went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying… You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow. (Matthew 5:38-42).

 

Few people have lived these words like Venerable Pierre Toussaint. Born into slavery on a Haitian sugar plantation and taken to New York in slavery as an adult, he not only cheerfully served those who subjugated and claimed to own him, but contrived by cheerful, faithful service to earn enough money to buy others out of slavery and ultimately, upon earning his own release, to purchase a home that he shared with the poor, orphans, the sick, and others in need.

Teaming in other good works with his wife, who was among those for whom he purchased an acknowledgement of freedom, he ultimately came to be acknowledged as the de facto founder of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York.

Truly Venerable Pierre Toussaint offers a lesson from which many people might benefit.

Points to Ponder:

The Theological Virtues of faith, hope, and charity are explained in Sections 1812 to 1829 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Section 1822 teaches that “charity is the virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.” (Compare Matthew 22:34-40)

Section 1825 teaches that the Apostle Paul has given the incomparable description of charity:

Charity is patient and kind, charity is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Charity does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Charity bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

(Quoting 1 Corinthians 13)

How well did Venerable Pierre Toussaint’s behaviour meet Saint Paul’s description?

  • Did he demonstrate patience and kindness? It is reported that:
    • during his enslavement he accepted education from his enslavers, served them lovingly, and while still enslaved worked his way as an adult through apprenticeship to become a successful hairdresser for prominent New York women – including the wife of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton – at a time when such women tended to use their maids for hairdressing; and that attracted a large a large clientele by his intelligence, artistry, and civility.
    • when the couple who claimed ownership of him lost their money and property and the husband died, Pierre willingly took on the role of supporting his former master’s wife, her new husband, her extended family, and his own still-enslaved relatives, financially and otherwise.
    • even after he was freed at the age of about 40, he corresponded with the family that had claimed to own him.
    • following his release, he bought his sister’s freedom, along with the woman he married. After his sister died, he adopted her daughter.
    • together with his wife, became involved in a number of charitable efforts,
      • beginning by taking baked good to children at the Colored Orphan Asylum and donating money;
      • sheltering orphans, sick people (including at least one priest) and others in need in his own home, and supporting them in education and vocational training;
      • organizing a credit bureau, an employment agency, a refuge for priests and needy travelers;
      • helping immigrants, particularly by using his ability in the French language to help Haitian refugees;
      • helping open the first Catholic school in New York for Black children, at St Vincent de Paul on Canal street.
    • In doing these things, it is reported that he worked assiduously to control his own fiery temper.
  • Did Venerable Pierre show jealousy, or boast? Is he reported to have been arrogant or rude? Does he appear to have insisted on having his own way? Was he irritable or resentful? It is reported that:
    • he acknowledged that he consciously fought his own naturally quick temper and supressed a talent for mimicry, explaining that he realized that anger and mimicry from him might not be well tolerated by the society that claimed power over him.
    • from the time he was allowed to go free in 1807, until New York abolished slavery twenty-two years later, he risked abduction and re-enslavement by bounty hunters simply by going outdoors, walking everywhere because Blacks were not allowed to use public transportation.
    • he helped raise funds for the first Catholic orphanage in NY, which was opened by the Sisters in Charity, even though it served only white children.
  • Did Venerable Pierre rejoice at wrong, or at right? It is reported that:
    • upon being released from legal bondage he took the surname Toussaint in honour of the Catholic Haitian revolutionary, Toussaint L’Overture, who led his country to freedom while remaining faithful to his beliefs.
    • he attended Mass daily for 66 years, and contributed liberally to the construction of the new Saint Patrick’s.
    • at the time of the proclamation of venerability in 1997, some people are reported to have disagreed with the declaration, on grounds that although he had been born into slavery, he did not resist his enslavement, or work to end slavery as an institution.

At his death, Venerable Pierre was buried in the cemetery of Old Saint Patrick’s Church in New York City. In the 1950s, the Irish-American John Boyle O’Reilly Committee for Interracial Justice began a campaign to research and publicize Venerable Pierre’s life story. In 1968, Cardinal John O’Connor, Archbishop of New York, named him a Servant of God and transferred his body to the crypt of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral; he remains the only lay person interred there. In 1997, he was declared venerable by Pope Saint John Paul II.

As Saint Paul put it, “charity bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:7)

Sources:

  1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1826.
  2. https://slaveryandremembrance.org/people/person/?id=PP051
  3. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/18/obituaries/pierre-toussaint-overlooked.html
  4. Franciscan Media: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/venerable-pierre-toussaint/
  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Toussaint

 

The Duty to Participate: beginning a new conversation.

Canada is not alone in having elected new leaders within the last year. Nor is it alone in having elected leaders who, like most human beings, are likely imperfect. But it does appear that Canada may face its best opportunity in years for beginning a respectful and democratic civic dialog, centred on Catholic values. Maybe its time for us to start talking to those we’ve elected to lead us.

Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney has publicly acknowledged that he professes Catholicism, and he openly attended Pope Leo’s inauguration Mass – even going so far as to praise the Pope’s homily, and to explain to the press why he knelt during Mass. It also reported that he regularly “goes to Catholic church.”

It is also true that he has openly declared his unreserved support for abortion rights, perhaps even for their elevation to the status of protection under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is obviously difficult for faithful Catholics to accept, particularly as abortion in Canada is legal for any reason, and practiced right up to the moment of birth.

It is a topic we should certainly take up with him.

On the other hand, he speaks Catholic when he wants to. It is reported, for example, that he once attended a Vatican seminar on the topic of building an economy that works for everyone, and that when he got home he wrote a book about how that might be done - a book that is framed in terms consistent with Catholic social teaching, and appears to be informed by it, even if it does not stress that fact.

The question we face is: do these things give us enough ground to at least try to start a respectful conversation, that includes both points of agreement and points of disagreement?  We should perhaps reflect carefully on that, as recent history suggests that it might be unwise to wait on a better chance.

If we do want to start such a conversation, it would be well to start soon. Despite the fact that Mr. Carney has barely even begun to work at his new job, criticism is already flowing toward him, including unfortunately a measure of sharp personal criticism from Catholics. Left unchecked, this stream seems likely to sweep us right back down the drain of endless bickering and nagging, rather than constructive conversation, especially as it is sometimes difficult to discern legitimate Catholic grounds for complaint, as opposed to mere personal preferences.

For example, one charge frequently leveled at Mr. Carney, by Catholics and others, is that he is a globalist banker, a member of a “post-national management class.” This certainly sounds ominous, but is it necessarily damning?  It’s clear the activities of many global bankers and managers are not aligned with Catholic thought.  But is it not possible that some global bankers and managers might be good people, even Catholics, even if they are both bankers and managers at the same time? It would help if particulars of such complaints were be provided, but they too seldom are.

So we are left with the question “is it a sin, in and of itself, for a Catholic (or anyone else) to be a globalist?” It would seem not. Much seems to depend on what kind of globalism is intended, and how it is approached. For example, the original, largest and oldest global organization in the world is the Roman Catholic Church, which has used its worldwide reach to accomplish untold good, along with a few things that we likely could have done better.

As Pope Saint John Paul II told the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences 24 years ago,

Globalization, a priori, is neither good nor bad. It will be what people make of it. No system is an end in itself, and it is necessary to insist that globalization, like any other system, must be at the service of the human person; it must serve solidarity and the common good.

One of the Church’s concerns about globalization is that it has quickly become a cultural phenomenon. The market as an exchange mechanism has become the medium of a new culture. 1 Many observers have noted the intrusive, even invasive, character of the logic of the market, which reduces more and more the area available to the human community for voluntary and public action at every level. The market imposes its way of thinking and acting, and stamps its scale of values upon behaviour. Those who are subjected to it often see globalization as a destructive flood threatening the social norms which had protected them and the cultural points of reference which had given them direction in life.

What is happening is that changes in technology and work relationships are moving too quickly for cultures to respond. Social, legal and cultural safeguards – the result of people’s efforts to defend the common good – are vitally necessary if individuals and intermediary groups are to maintain their centrality.2 

It seems that concerns such as this are what we should focus on, rather than condemning ideas out of hand. And it would seem wise to start working now, speaking up and encouraging or correcting where necessary, and doing what we can to ensure that any globalist initiatives are established in responsible fashion, that they seek to do only that which is needed and appropriate, and that they are consistent with the principles of both solidarity and subsidiarity, rather than mere schemes for maximizing profit.

We could start by listening.  For example, this is exactly where Mr. Carney’s book begins, in what sounds like close agreement with Saint John Paul. From the introduction to Value(s), for example:

These are the questions that this book seeks to explore.  It will examine how our society came to embody Wilde’s aphorism – knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. How by elevating belief in the market to an inviolable truth we moved from a market economy to a market society.  And how we can turn this around… [to build an economy underpinned by the values and beliefs of]:

  • dynamism to help create solutions and channel human energy;
  • resilience to make it easier to bounce back from shocks while protecting the most vulnerable in society;
  • sustainability with long-term perspectives that align incentives across generations;
  • fairness, particularly in markets to sustain their legitimacy;
  • responsibility so that individuals feel accountable for their actions;
  • solidarity whereby citizens recognize their obligations to each other and share a sense of community and society; and
  • humility to recognize the limits of our knowledge, understanding and power so that we act as custodians to improve the common good.3

Much will depend, obviously, on whether Mr. Carney actually tries to build such an economy, and how well he does with it, and how well his values and beliefs turn out to align with Catholic thought.

It seems like we might be better off trying to have collaborative input into this than to stubbornly refuse to play.  Saint John Paul is already pointing the way:

A sound globalization, carried out in respect for the values of different nations and ethnic groupings, can contribute significantly to the unity of the human family and enable forms of cooperation which are not only economic but also social and cultural. Globalization must become more than simply another name for the absolute relativization of values and the homogenization of life-styles and cultures. For this to happen, Christian leaders, also in the commercial sphere, are challenged to bear witness to the liberating and transforming power of Christian truth, which inspires us to place all our talents, our intellectual resources, our persuasive abilities, our experience and our skills at the service of God, our neighbour and the common good of the human family.

Likewise the charge that Mr. Carney is a member of a new government-by-management class. Is not government, no matter its form, simply another word for management? It is true that as the world’s population has grown and come together, with cultures mingling, blending, and confronting one another more closely than ever before, the “management” imposed by our governments has grown ever more intrusive, our “personal space” shrinking further and further. That is deeply lamentable. But is it avoidable? If so, how? Farmers of the 1700s, for example, resented the encroachment of towns and government. Cowboys of the 1800s disliked fencing of the land, and railroads crossing their grasslands; railroad magnates and other capitalists of that and other eras disliked securities regulation. And I believe it would not be difficult to gather evidence that the inhabitants of North America at the time the Western techno-commercial culture arrived were not thrilled, either.

Few of us welcome the idea of over-management. But again, it would seem that the answer is probably not flat (and especially futile) rejection.  Rather, a careful, principled, gathering, and democratic approach to a process that has already begun is perhaps called for, offering thoughtful, justified policy alternatives.

Perhaps we are called to wipe off our glasses and start reading a little more closely, paying attention not only to our fears but both the broad scope and specific details of proposals, bearing in mind always that we share this planet, standing before God with a vast number of other people, and look for opportunities that balance solidarity with subsidiarity, the common good with individual rights and responsibilities.

Do we really want to wait until we have a leader who is perfect in the eyes of everyone before we start that conversation?  Mr. Carney appears to have brought us more reason for hope than any of his recent predecessors.  It’s far from perfect, but would it not be a matter of prudent stewardship to try to work with it?

Try writing him a letter, telling him what you like and don’t like about his past and his plans for the future, so far as they have been announced. Copy your local MP and your provincial or territorial representatives. Invite them all to join us in reflecting on the prayer Pope Francis shared at the bottom of his encyclical Fratelli tutti.4

Notes:

  1. Emphasis in original.
  2. Address of the Holy Father John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Friday, 27 April 2001 (https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/2001/april/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20010427_pc-social-sciences.html)
  3. Carney, Mark, Value(s): Building a Better World for All, Signal Press, 2021 (pp. 3, 8-9)
  4. See this issue’s prayer at bottom.
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