December 2, 2024
Martin Maria de Porres Ward Under Consideration To Become 7th Black Saint
Martin Maria de Porres Ward, a Black American priest who had to leave the United States to undertake his calling, is now being considered by the Catholic Church for beautification
Martin Maria de Porres Ward, an African American priest who had to leave the United States to undertake his calling, is now being considered by the Catholic Church for beatification or sainthood. If elevated to sainthood, he would become the seventh Black figure and most recent African American to receive the honor.
According to the National Catholic Register, Ward was born in 1918 as Matthias Dewitte Ward, the son of an interracial couple in Boston.
Ward grew up as a Methodist and moved to Washington D.C. alongside his 11 siblings, during his childhood. It was in Washington that he was introduced to Catholicism as a teenager.
After his introduction to the Catholic faith, Ward spent a lot of time at D.C.’s St. Augustine Church, considered the mother church of Black Catholics in the city, and converted to the faith as a 17-year-old.
Ward was confirmed at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in 1940, and just two years later, he answered a calling to the ministry and entered the Salvatorian Fathers’ seminary in St. Nazianz, Wisconsin.
However, upon being afflicted with an infectious lung condition, Ward withdrew from the seminary.
He later moved to Brooklyn, where he became the first Black person to attend the St. Francis Seminary located on Staten Island.
Ward made no effort to conceal his identity, going as far as to inform the seminary vocations director in a letter that he was a Black man.
“I received your application blanks, but before I have them filled out, Father, I wish to state that I am colored. I do not know if I mentioned this before, but you did not ask nationality. Now, kind Father Celestine, I would not want to cause an embarrassment on anyone’s part,” Ward wrote in part.
Upon his acceptance to St. Francis in 1945, Ward took on the religious name of Martin Maria de Porres as his own.
After his ordination in 1955 in Albany, New York, he volunteered to work at missions in Brazil, a common practice since many American dioceses practiced segregation at the time and wouldn’t allow Black bishops to serve.
Ward stayed in Brazil until his death from a heart attack at 81 years of age while he was conducting Mass in Rio de Janerio in 1999. He received consideration from The Vatican for beatification on the 25th anniversary of his death in June.
Ward is credited with two miracles based on his intercession, which are currently under investigation, and according to the Black Catholic Messenger, he is regarded as a uniquely holy figure in Brazil.
Ward’s candidacy was made official in 2020 when the Bishop of São João del Rei in Brazil opened his case after word of a local cult of devotion to Ward spawned reports of two miracles attributed to the post-humous intercession of Ward.
According to Douglas McMillan of the Order of Friars Minor Conventional, “As of July 1, we received notice, through the Brazilian Historical Commission, that we have official approval from the Dicastery of the Causes of Saints,” McMillan said. “We are now in the process [of] working on putting together the final copy of the position for the dicastery.”
If the petition for Ward’s sainthood is approved by The Vatican, Ward will join Pierre Toussaint, Mother Mary Lange, Henriette Delille, Friar Augustus Tolton, Julia Greeley, and Sister Thea Bowman as the only Black people to receive veneration from the Catholic Church.
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