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In Memory of Deacon Kenneth S. Greene

Kenneth Greene Obituary

Obituary published on Legacy.com by Serenity Funeral Home LLC on May 31, 2025.
Kenneth Steve Greene was the eldest of six children born on February 2, 1947, to the union of Kenneth Thomas and Ivory Mae Greene in Fort Smith, Arkansas. He departed this life on May 22, 2025, at the age of 78. His parents preceded him in death. Three of his siblings also preceded him in death: Connie Lavern Greene, Mark Keith Greene, Sr., and Michael Thomas Greene.
Kenneth was baptized into the Roman Catholic faith as an infant. He was educated in Catholic schools and universities: St. John the Baptist Catholic School and St. Anne’s Academy in Fort Smith; St. Benedict’s College in Atchison, Kansas; and the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. Kenneth earned a master’s degree in educational psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

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Black Catholic Spirituality | A voice crying out in Gospel joy

Sister Thea Bowman and the soul of Black Catholic spirituality

By Father Leonard Gicheru | Catholic Key

“What does it mean to be Black and Catholic? It means that I come to my Church fully functioning. … I bring myself; my Black self, all that I am, all that I hope to become. I bring my whole history, my traditions, my experience, my culture, my African American song and dance and gesture and movement and teaching and preaching and healing and responsibility as a gift to the Church.” – Sister Thea Bowman

In the tapestry of American Catholicism, few threads shine as vibrantly as the life and witness of Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman. Born in Mississippi in 1937 to a Methodist family and a convert to Catholicism as a child, Thea’s journey to religious life and national prominence was rooted in a deep love for Jesus Christ and a deep pride in her Black heritage.

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What Pope Leo XIV Means to Black Catholics in the Birmingham Region

By Sym Posey and Don Rhodes II | The Birmingham Times

“Shocked and excited.” “A powerful moment.” “Overwhelming.” “A pope for the people.”

Those were sentiments from a few Black Catholics in the Birmingham-area after Pope Leo XIV became the first North American and first person of Haitian and African American descent to be elected to lead the global Catholic community.

“I was shocked and excited when I heard that the pope was American,” said Brent Patterson, who has been a member of Our Lady of Fátima Catholic Church in Birmingham’s historic Titusville neighborhood for the past 14 years. “Shocked that in over 2,000 years of the church’s existence, no pope has been American. … Excited that he is American like me and potentially has Black, Creole, and Spanish [ancestry].”

 

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Sr Marcia Hall elected superior general of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, nation’s oldest Black Catholic order

The New Jersey native and former university administrator has been a member of the Oblates, the nation’s oldest Black Catholic order, since 1998.

Nate Tinner-Williams | Black Catholic Messenger

The Oblate Sisters of Providence, the nation’s oldest operating Black Catholic religious order, have elected Sr Marcia Hall as their new superior general, the 21st in their 196-year history.

The order elected their new administration on April 24 in Baltimore, where they were founded in 1829 by Venerable Mary Lange and the Sulpician priest James Nicholas Joubert.