Meeting the Pioneers of Black Catholicism
By Agnes Kane Callum
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Father Charles Randolph Uncles, a native Baltimorean, and parishioner of St. Francis Xavier, Baltimore, became the first colored seminarian to be educated and ordained a priest in the United States.

He was ordained by Cardinal James Gibbons at the then Cathedral of the Assumption in Baltimore in December 1891 and celebrated his first Mass Christmas Day at St. Francis Xavier.

Charles Randolph was the son of Lorenzo and Anna Marie (Buchanan) Uncles, who were born free and faithful Catholics. Charles Randolph had the desire to be a priest at an early age. He dedicated himself to acquiring an education and following the tenets of the Catholic Church.

He attended Baltimore Normal School for teachers and taught in Baltimore County public schools. He was fluent in Latin, Greek, and French. Father Uncles was sponsored by Father Slattery, who was the American provincial of the Mill Hill Order, to attend St. Hyacinthe College in Quebec, Canada. He finished his studies there with the highest grades in his class.

In the meantime, Cardinal Herbert Vaughn, who was the spiritual leader of the Mill Hill Order of England, arrived in America in 1871. By the latter part of 1888, Cardinal Vaughn formed St. Joseph Seminary in Baltimore, and Father Uncles was one of the first candidates. It was here that he received tonsure (the ceremony in which some or all of the hair is clipped as an entrance into religious status) by Cardinal Gibbons.

Father Uncles, along with four other priests, was instrumental in forming the Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, known as the Josephites, in 1893.

From 1891-1925 Father Uncles taught mainly in Epiphany College in Baltimore and Newburg, N.Y. While residing at Epiphany College he fell ill and died July 21, 1933. He is buried at Calvary Cemetery, Josephite Plot, in Newburg.

For the first time since inception in 1893, the Josephites did not have a Black priest because Father John Dorsey, who was fully educated and ordained in the United States in 1902, had died in 1926. Father John Joseph Plantevigne had been ordained a Josephite in 1907 and died in 1913.

Father Dorsey, a Baltimorean, was baptized at St. Francis Xavier in 1875. Like Father Uncles, he too, celebrated his first Mass. at St. Francis Xavier. Father Dorsey was noted for his impressive and spiritual homilies and for his dedication in bringing converts into the Catholic faith.

In his tour of the south, he became friends with one of America's foremost Black leaders, Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Father Dorsey was given the privilege to celebrate Mass at the institute the first Sunday of each month.

In February 1905 Father Dorsey became the first Black pastor in the United States as the spiritual leader of St. Peter Catholic Church in Pine Bluff, Ark. He was also one of the founders of the Knights of Peter Claver, which commenced November 1909. He was their national chaplain from its beginning until 1923.

Father Dorsey was the pastor of St. Monica in South Baltimore until his death, June 20, 1926. He is interred in New Cathedral Cemetery in Baltimore.

Father Plantevigne was born on a small farm in Louisiana. He received the vows of Holy Orders in 1907 as a Josephite. He celebrated his first Mass at St. Francis Xavier and later became the assistant pastor.

While as St. Francis, Father Plantevigne contracted tuberculosis and died in January 1913 at age 42. There was not another Josephite ordained until 1941 with Father Charles H. Hall.

However minute or great the efforts of the three pioneers of Black Catholicism, Fathers Uncles, Dorsey and Plantevigne, their names and deeds are forever posted in the history book of time.

Agnes Kane Callum is a member of the historic St. Francis Xavier Church in Baltimore and a noted historian.