The first-ever Tolton Symposium will be held March 2-4 in Pittsburgh to honor Venerable Augustus Tolton, the nation’s first openly Black Catholic priest.
Announced in January, the event is being co-sponsored by the Tolton Center for Spirituality in Chicago, the city where Tolton served in ministry for the better part of a decade before his untimely death in 1897. He has since been put on the path to sainthood.
Proudly partnering with the Tolton Center, we announce its first symposium honoring Ven. Tolton Augustus Tolton, in March in Pittsburgh. We invite our communities to join a gathering of renewal and hope. pic.twitter.com/IsjfgrsMLT
— National Black Sisters' Conference (@TheNBSC) January 19, 2026
The event, under the theme “Tolton: A Story of Hope,” will include addresses from Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus Joseph N. Perry of Chicago, who headed the initial phase of Tolton’s sainthood cause; Dr. Ansel Augustine, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Assistant Director of African American Affairs; Dr. Shannen Dee Williams of the University of Dayton; and Dr. Anne Chrzan of Saint Joseph's College of Maine.
Co-sponsoring the event with the TSC is the St. Paul of the Cross Retreat Center, a Passionist institution on Pittsburgh’s South Side.
The week of the event will mark 16 years since the beginning of canonization efforts for Tolton, spearheaded by Cardinal Francis George, OMI of Chicago, who championed the late Black priest as a model of virtue and overcoming racism.
Born into Catholic slavery in 19th-century Missouri, Tolton escaped to Illinois with his family during the Civil War and found refuge in Illinois, where he was raised in the faith. After sensing a call to the priesthood, he was infamously denied entry into every U.S. Catholic seminary to which he applied, leading him to leave the country to study in Rome.
Tolton graduated from the Pontifical Urban University and was ordained to the priesthood in 1886, after which he was sent back to America to serve in his hometown of Quincy, Illinois. He faced discrimination even as a priest, both from fellow Catholic ministers and local Black Protestant clergy. In 1889, he successfully sought a transfer to the Archdiocese of Chicago, where he founded the city’s first Black Catholic parish and served until his death from heat stroke at the age of 43.
Since the official introduction of his sainthood cause in 2011, Tolton has become the namesake of several institutions, including two Catholic schools, a senior living center in Philadelphia, a lodge and retreat center in Missouri, and the Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. In recent years, annual processions and pilgrimages have also been held in his memory, and a documentary, “Tolton Speaks,” premiered in 2024.
Next month’s conference will help to continue the growth of popular devotion to the late priest, who is one of seven African-American Catholics up for canonization. Pope Francis confirmed Tolton's heroic virtue in 2019, declaring him “Venerable.” The sainthood cause now awaits a Vatican-confirmed miracle brought about by his intercession, which would allow the pope to beatify him—a first for an American American.
Registration for the Tolton Symposium is open and starts at $250 for commuter participants, with meals included. Private rooms are available for $450. The deadline for participants is Sunday, March 1.
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.
