Bishop Joseph Perry discusses first Black priest

By LIAM KELLY news writer

b ishop Joseph p erry of the a rchdiocese of c hicago urged the c atholic c hurch to embrace diversity in his lecture Thursday night at h oly c ross c ollege on the life of Fr. a ugustus Tolton, the first c atholic priest in the u nited s tates publicly known to be b lack.

Tolton lived his life with a “heroic seriousness” that allowed him to persevere through the land mines of the racial discrimination in the 19th century, p erry asserted.

b orn into slavery, Tolton’s family escaped to i llinois during the c ivil w ar where he became a devout c atholic — despite being required to sit in a segregated section of his church and being forbidden from attending the local c atholic school.

“ p arishioners threatened priests, and so Tolton was expelled,” p erry said.

p erry explained that Tolton remained steadfast in his faith despite the many obstacles. h e was privately tutored by local nuns and then became ordained as a priest in r ome, as there were no seminaries that would accept him in the u nited s tates. i nstead of being sent to a frica as he assumed he would be, Tolton was sent to his local parish in the u nited s tates, which is when he became the first b lack priest in the u nited s tates. w hile Tolton’s masterful rhetoric earned him a great deal of respect by many parishioners — both white and b lack — many were hostile to his preaching.

“There were those who were not at all happy about Tolton’s success in the area and began to see Fr. Tolton as a threat to the status quo,” p erry said.

Tolton was then sent to a poor diocese in the south side of c hicago where he see holy cross PAGE 5

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SOPHIA CRIMIVAROLI | The Observer

The student men’s boxing club, Bengal Bouts, started their tournament Thursday. Boxing at Notre Dame dates back to 1920, when Knute Rockne first organized interhall tournaments. Proceeds from Bengal Bouts are donated

Mardi and culture. b urg opened by asking the panelists to describe the situation on the ground. m art described that in wartorn s yria, the lack of a central government and infrastructure means that it is proving difficult for international organizations to aid victims of the devastating earthquake and that the disaster has also been met with a delayed response from the Turkish government to provide relief to civilians. m art explained how volunteers “spent hours on the first day waiting for the necessary signatures before they could actually start their rescue and search missions,” while many people remained trapped under collapsed buildings. o n paper, m art noted, Turkey was prepared for a disaster of this magnitude. In the past two decades, the country has implemented an extensive legal and bureaucratic earthquake preparedness framework to reconstruct areas that are at risk to earthquakes. The government also collected over $38 million in earthquake taxes, according to the Turkish s tatistical Institute. h owever, m art said the reality is vastly different.

University Ahmet Öztürk and nd Tantur director of undergraduate studies Gabriel m itchell.

“Part of it is corruption,” m art said. “Public officials overlooked aberrations from the law and construction regulations for their own political and economic gains.”

Another reason for the current situation is the corrupted use of the earthquake preparedness framework, which has become an economic tool. Law 6306, for example, gives the ministry of urbanization the right to evacuate and reconstruct areas of earthquake risk, but according to m art, this law is used instead to “demolish the neighborhoods of marginalized communities and to forcefully evacuate them from urban centers.”

Öztürk attributes the corruption and ultimately unstable construction work to president r ecep e rdogan’s “neo-patrimonial” authoritarian regime, which allows companies to disobey regulations for quick and cheap construction instead of stable buildings that can withstand earthquakes.

Öztürk said the disaster has many underlying political implications because e rdogan used the earthquake as a “political tool” to polarize the population by targeting individuals who criticized his delayed response. The earthquake in s yria and Turkey has created a devastating humanitarian crisis and will likely have large impacts on e rdogan’s regime as well as stir up regional tensions. According to Öztörk, “this is a geographic disaster and this is a disaster of politics.” c ontinuing, Öztürk said it is clear that the disaster will have large impacts on Turkish internal politics as well as the surrounding areas. With the number of displaced people whose homes were destroyed, there will likely be a large wave of immigrants to Western countries. That wave has the potential to stir up tensions as Western states deal with another refugee crisis. m itchell predicts that Turkey’s foreign policy may be impacted by the earthquake and that the country “is going to have a lot of difficult challenging choices to make” if e rgodan is to resolve problems with neighbors and cooperate in return for humanitarian aid. m itchell also added that the earthquake has made the situation in s yria even worse, a country already caught in the midst of a 10year conflict has even more damage and casualties.

“The civil war in s yria is not going to end,” m itchell said. “A lot of the issues about delivering aid to that area are going to persist.” b urg concluded by prompting the panelists to consider whether the international community is prepared with pre-existing institutions to handle future humanitarian crises caused by events like natural disasters. Panelists agreed that there are sufficient mechanisms and organizations to respond to the crisis in s yria and Turkey, but problems may arise if developments in other parts of the world stretch resources thin.

“Like the d utch boy, we’re sticking our fingers trying to plug up all of these holes, but eventually there’s going to be one hole in which the water continues to pour out,” m itchell responded. h e noted that “the international community’s biggest challenge right now is a lack of unity,” which may impact the effectiveness of disaster responses in the future.

Tornifolio also announced that Judy h utchinson, director of student engagement for n otre d ame International.