A new mini-documentary covers the life of Servant of God Julia Greeley, a formerly enslaved Denver philanthropist and one of the seven African Americans on the path to Catholic sainthood.
The 13-minute short film, “Julia Greeley: Servant of the Sacred Heart,” is directed by John “JP” Kloess and produced by the Capuchin Franciscans. It was released on YouTube and Facebook June 27, which this year was the feast of the Sacred Heart—Julia’s most cherished devotion.
“I think Julia Greeley is our own Thérèse of Lisieux here in the United States of America,” said Fr Eric David Zegeer, pastor of Greeley's home parish, Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Denver’s historically Black Five Points neighborhood.
Who was Julia Greeley? Learn the story of this slave turned saint.https://t.co/pFZRWMDkaT#juliagreeley #denver #Catholic
— Capuchin Franciscans (@CapFriars) June 27, 2025
Born into slavery in Missouri in 1833, Greeley was emancipated during the Civil War but not without scars. As recounted in the new documentary, she lost an eye and the full use of one of her legs due to beatings while enslaved by Samuel Brice Caldwell.
After receiving her freedom, Greeley moved to Denver and became a domestic servant for Julia Pratte Dickerson, the future wife of Colorado Territory governor William Gilpin. Under Julia’s tutelage, Greeley converted to Catholicism and later became a Secular Franciscan.
It was during this time that Greeley became the subject of the one extant photograph of her during her life, one of several important anecdotes covered in the film.
“[It’s] of Julia holding a little White baby with a Rosary in her hands,” said Mary Leisring, a Black Denverite who served as president of the Julia Greeley Guild, which she helped to found in 2011.
The photo represents a microcosm of Greeley’s life of prayer and service, which gained her quiet fame across the city as she served the poor of all races—often in secret, so as not to offend White sensibilities—and ran a prayer ministry for local firefighters. Despite her own poverty, she became known as Denver's “Angel of Charity” and was associated with her characteristic red wagon, which she used to carry items she planned to give away.
“Julia suffered from arthritis in her hands, feet, back. Almost every joint that could have hurt probably did,” said Auxiliary Bishop Jorge Rodríguez-Novelo of Denver at Greeley’s reinterment ceremony at the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in 2016, an event included in the documentary.
“Nevertheless, she never stopped practicing, doing, and showing love.”
Other speakers in the film include Jean Torkelson, executive director of the Julia Greeley Home, a women’s shelter in Denver, and the Capuchin Franciscan priest Blaine Burkey, a guild co-founder wrote the first book on Greeley’s life, “In Secret Service of the Sacred Heart.”
Greeley died in 1918 on the feast of the Sacred Heart at age 85, after which more than a thousand people came to her parish to pay respects to the first Denver layperson to lie in state in a Catholic church. She was thereafter buried at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Wheat Ridge, before becoming the first person interred at the Denver cathedral when her sainthood cause was opened nearly a century later.
The cause is currently in the Roman phase, with Italian experts currently working on the positio, an official summary of her life and works. It is being written by Cristiana Marinelli and overseen by Msgr Maurizio Tagliaferri as of 2022.
Should the positio be accepted by the Vatican, the pope could declare Greeley “Venerable”—the second stage in the process. Thereafter, the Church requires a confirmed miracle wrought by her intercession to allow her to be beatified, and a second would clear the way for canonization. There are currently no African American beati or saints.
As with the other six Black candidates from the United States, many of Greeley’s devotees consider the formalities to be just that.
“One of the things that I really enjoy about talking about Julia,” said Leisring in the film, “is that as far as I’m concerned, she’s already a saint.”
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.
