Sr Jamie T. Phelps, one of the nation’s most influential Black womanist theologians and a leading light of the Black Catholic Movement, has died in Michigan after a brief illness. She was 84 years old and no cause of death was released.
The Adrian Dominican Sisters, of which Phelps was the first Black member and in which she served for 66 years, announced the news on Nov. 24, two days after her death.
“The Adrian Dominican Sisters have been deeply blessed by Sister Jamie’s joyful, challenging, and transformative presence among us, calling us to fully live Gospel imperatives in our Dominican sisterhood,” said the congregation’s prioress, Sr Elise D. García.
“She was a Dominican preacher through and through who played an indelible national leadership role in raising up Black Catholic Studies as an essential field of study for all Catholics. Her love and passion for the common good of all God’s people are an enduring legacy—calling us all to keep carrying on.”
Pax Christi USA mourns the loss of Sr. Dr. Jamie Phelps, a brilliant theologian who was one of the first Black women to earn a doctorate in Catholic theology. “Sr. Jamie embodied a profound joy at the intersectionality of being Black, female, Catholic, and religious." She died Nov. 22 in Michigan.
— Pax Christi USA (@paxchristiusa.bsky.social) 2025-11-26T18:58:09Z
Born in 1941 in segregated Alabama, Phelps was raised Catholic and moved to Chicago with her family as a child during the Great Migration. There, her family helped integrate Holy Name Cathedral and she was educated by the Adrian Dominicans, sensing a calling to the religious life while still in grade school.
Though first rebuffed by Adrian Dominicans and advised to wait until her teen years to reapply—in part because the order had never before accepted a non-White member—Phelps was accepted near the end of her high school studies at the Josephinum Academy. She made first vows in 1961 and final vows in 1966.
Phelps began work as a teacher upon entering the Dominicans and earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Siena Heights College in 1969, followed by a master’s in social work from the University of Illinois Chicago in 1972. She continued on to a master’s in theology from Saint John’s University in Minnesota, ministering as a psychiatric social worker in Chicago before returning to school to study for a terminal degree, earning a doctorate in systematic theology from the Catholic University of America in 1989.
A founding member of the National Black Sisters’ Conference in 1968, Phelps was a central figure in the burgeoning Black Catholic Movement of the late 20th century, helping to form the intellectual corpus of the African-American Catholic move toward self-determination. Even before obtaining her doctorate, she participated in the inaugural meeting of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium in 1978 and was instrumental in the founding of Xavier University of Louisiana’s Institute for Black Catholic Studies in 1980.
While teaching at CTU, Phelps founded what is now the Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program for local Black Catholic lay ministers and helped revive the BCTS as an academic society for scholars of Black Catholicism. She went on to teach as a visiting professor at Loyola University Chicago, the University of Dayton, and the University of Notre Dame. She served on the IBCS master’s degree faculty in New Orleans and was director of the Institute from 2003 to 2011, while also teaching undergraduate theology at XULA.
Phelps’ academic output was wide-ranging, beginning with her writings on psychology and flowering with her dissertation on the life, ministry, and apostasy of Fr John R. Slattery, the founder of the Josephites. She later wrote on moral development in African-American Catholic spaces, Black liberation theology, and womanist theology, among other topics. She also edited or co-edited a number of seminal texts, including “Black and Catholic: The Challenge and Gift of Black Folk” in 1997 and “Stamped with the Image of God: African Americans as God's Image in Black” in 2003, in addition to her contributions to other important volumes.
A sought-after consultant, Phelps assisted the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops with their efforts to craft a pastoral letter on racism, and also helped write a similar document in the Archdiocese of Chicago, “Dwell in My Love” from Cardinal Francis George, OMI.
Phelps was a member of the BCTS, the Catholic Theological Society of America, the Society for the Study of Black Religion, the American Academy of Religion, the Black Theology Project, the Black-Jewish Dialogue Group, and the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians. In addition to her academic works, she made time to serve as a volunteer Bible study coordinator at a number of Catholic parishes in the Chicago area.
“The significance of Sister Jamie Phelps’ pioneering scholarship and strategic administrative ability cannot be overstated. She has made a substantive, radical, and creative difference in how we Black Catholics think of ourselves, think of God, think of Church, and think of Black theology,” said Dr. M. Shawn Copeland, professor emerita of theology at Boston College, in a statement.
“Sister Jamie’s theological work is intellectually imaginative, demanding, passionate, and uncompromising; moreover, it is grounded in rigorous historical research, balanced in exposition and analysis, nuanced in judgment. She will remain a major force in the thematization of Black Catholic Theology.”
Phelps was the recipient of various commendations during her more than six decades of ministry, including the NBSC’s Harriet Tubman Award in 1999, the Ann O’Hara Graff Memorial Award from the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Leadership Award from Call to Action in 2010, and the “How Beautiful Are Their Feet” Award in 2016 from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference. She also received a Distinguished Faculty Medallion during her time at XULA and an honorary doctorate from Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis in 2016.
Phelps retired from XULA in 2011, with her order later establishing the Sr. Jamie T. Phelps, O.P., Ph.D. Endowed Scholarship in her honor in 2022, benefiting degree students at IBCS. Phelps served as the commencement speaker for the Institute in 2023, one of her last public events on a national scale.
Nate Tinner-Williams
In retirement, Phelps continued to engage in independent research and writing from her base in the Midwest, first in Chicago and later at the Adrian Dominicans’ motherhouse in Michigan. She was a resident of the Dominican Life Center in Adrian at the time of her death.
Phelps is predeceased by her parents, Alfred Sr. and Emma Phelps; brothers, William Brown and Julius Phelps; and sisters, Marionette Phelps and Alfreda Phelps-Bowles. She is survived by her brother, Alfred Phelps Jr.
A visitation will take place for Phelps on Tuesday, Dec. 2, at St. Catherine Chapel in the Adrian Dominicans’ motherhouse at 6:30pm CT, followed by a vigil prayer. A funeral Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday at 10:30am, followed by prayers of committal at the congregation’s cemetery. Services at the motherhouse chapel will be available via livestream. Donations in Phelps’ memory can be made to the Adrian Dominicans.
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.
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