Applications are open for the Reverend Canon A. Gerard Jordan Scholarship, which honors the late Black Norbertine who served as a promoter of Venerable Augustus Tolton, the first openly African-American Catholic priest.
The $500 scholarship, founded in 2023 to benefit single mothers pursuing a college education, is a joint effort between the Jordan family and the Tolton Ambassadors of Louisiana. The latest round was announced earlier this month.
“Let’s support the inspiring mothers in our community pursuing their higher education goals!” wrote the Tolton Spirituality Center, where Jordan served as the founding director from 2020 until his death in 2022.
Born in 1967, Jordan was a native of Lake Charles and served as a Marine before starting a 20-year business career in real estate and mental health services. He also started a family and had two children before retiring in 2005.
Jordan entered postulancy with the Norbertines in 2007 at Daylesford Abbey in Paoli, Pennsylvania, professing solemn vows in 2014. He served as an assistant vocations director and assistant development director before his ordination to the priesthood in 2016.
Shortly after the opening of the sainthood cause for Tolton, Jordan—then still a seminarian—joined the efforts as a special assistant to the postulator, then-Auxiliary Bishop Joseph N. Perry of Chicago in 2013. He became the official promoter thereafter, traveling the country to promote Tolton’s legacy and the riches of Black Catholicism.
In 2020, Jordan founded the Tolton Spirituality Center, a Chicago-based organization founded to uplift Tolton as a model of mission and community service. It has since hosted a number of events across the country, including the inaugural Tolton Symposium earlier this year. Jordan also founded the Gulf Coast chapter of the TSC and was the co-founder of the Tolton Ambassadors program.
According to the TSC, Jordan was one of just four African-American Catholic canons at the time of his death, and was a titular canon and papal knight of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. He served as a parish priest and was a full-time priest chaplain before his passing at the age of 54.
The scholarship in his honor will be awarded later this summer, and applicants are require to submit a personal needs statement, school transcripts, and two letters of recommendation by Tuesday, June 30. For more information, prospective applicants can contact Dr. Ann Pitre at ann.xig@gmail.com or call (337) 263-0409.
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.
