The late Fr Herman A. Porter, an African-American Catholic priest who served in the Midwest and in 1968 organized the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus, has been added to the Diocese of Rockford’s list of clergy credibly accused of child sex abuse.
The diocese released the updated list earlier this year, as noted in a February bulletin from one of Porter’s former parishes, Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Sterling, Illinois.
“Per diocesan policy, parishioners at parishes where Father Porter served, even though briefly, were notified and his name has now been added to the Diocese of Rockford's list of priests against whom an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor has been substantiated,” the bulletin stated.
Born in the mid-1910s in Greenville, Mississippi, Porter was raised there at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, an African-American parish operated by the Society of the Divine Word. He later attended Loyola University Chicago and felt a call to the priesthood, becoming the first African-American member of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (the Dehonians) in 1942. He was then known as Herman A. Martin Porter.
After obtaining a master's in English from the University of Notre Dame, Porter was ordained in Milwaukee in 1947, celebrating first Masses at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Chicago and at Sacred Heart in Mississippi. He later taught at his order’s minor seminary, Divine Heart in Donaldson, Indiana, while serving at parishes in what was then the Diocese of Fort Wayne.
Porter authored a 1952 article, “Color Line in Catholic Churches,” which circulated widely in the Catholic press. It advocated for desegregating the U.S. priesthood and religious life, which were still largely closed to African Americans.
Porter began serving in the Diocese of Rockford in 1960, becoming director of the diocese’s Catholic information and Counseling Center in 1963 and ministering to African-American families. As part of its programs, the center operated a summer camp for disadvantaged children. Porter ended his service with the center in 1970.
Incardinated into the Diocese of Rockford in 1963, Porter served in various parishes, including Sacred Heart in Sterling, St. Therese of Jesus in Aurora, St. Ann’s in Warren, St. Mary’s in Rockford. He also served as a teacher or chaplain in several local schools, including Newman Central Catholic High in Sterling and Bishop Muldoon High in Rockford, and as a chaplain at St. Joseph’s Hospital Belvidere.
A well-respected Catholic voice on race matters throughout the Civil Rights Movement, Porter served as chaplain of the local Catholic Interracial Council and was coordination of the Rockford Diocese’s Task Force on Urban Problems. He also organized inter-diocesan interracial efforts and was president of the Catholic Clergy Conference on the Interracial Apostolate.
In 1968, prior to a meeting of the CCIA in Detroit, Porter called a separate meeting of the nation’s Black priests and religious brothers. The move was in response to assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. two weeks prior, and the resulting national fallout. The gathering became the founding meeting of the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus.
By 1971, the NBCCC was among several national Black Catholic organizations calling for African-American bishops to be appointed by the Vatican. Porter was among several names floated to become the first Black archbishop of Washington, a call that went unheeded.
In his later life, Porter was awarded the NBCCC’s Fr. Joseph Davis Lifetime Achievement Award in 1978, and retired from active ministry the next year for health reasons. He died in 1986 at age 72 following an illness.
Details of the abuse allegation against Porter have not been released, and the Diocese of Rockford did not provide additional information. Other dioceses where Porter reportedly served, Fort Wayne and Chicago, did not respond to requests for comment from BCM.
Though the Rockford Diocese has had the lowest percentage of priests accused abuse compared to other Illinois dioceses, state attorney general Kwame Raoul said in 2023 that the chancery engaged in numerous cover-ups during the period between 1950 and 2002. It is unclear whether the allegation against Porter is among them.
Though it is a standard practice in the United States, the release of lists of “credibly accused” priests is frowned upon by the Vatican. According to recent guidance, this is due to incompatibility with canon law and because of the common occurrence of deceased priests being added to such lists, which do not have the force of law.
“The determination of whether an allegation is ‘well-founded’ often rests on a non-canonical foundation and demands a relatively low standard of proof,” reads September 2024 correspondence from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts, “resulting in the publication of the name of a person merely accused, but of an unproven accusation, without the benefit of any exercise of the right to defense.”
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.
