The sixteenth-century Spanish missionary to Africa, Peter Claver, was canonized in 1888 when Archbishop John Ireland began a missionary effort to attract African Americans to join the Catholic Church. Three years later enough African Americans had converted to Catholicism that it became necessary for the diocese to consider building them a church. Ireland purchased an empty church building on Market Street between the 4th and 5th Avenues. He then invited John Slattery, who provided priests for African American congregations out of the Josephite seminary in Baltimore, to visit Saint Paul for a six-week-long “missionary crusade”. Soon after, St. Peter Claver sodality became a permanent congregation. In 1892, the archdiocese built a new structure near the southwest corner of Farrington and Aurora and a church was constructed. By the time the church was dedicated two years later, the parish numbered 350 members. n 1896, the Toussaint L’Ouverture Literature Society was founded. It was also open to any denomination and in 1897 boasted around 350 members as well. Initially, the congregation was integrated and the clergy was all white; however, this began to change in 1910 with the ordination of Stephen Theobald, a black lawyer from British Guiana. Father Theobald, a Saint Paul Seminary graduate and one of the first African American priests in the United States, served St. Peter Claver until 1932. While technically not an African American parish, St. Peter Claver did gain this reputation within the black community causing consternation among the clergy of St. Paul’s traditional black Protestant congregations. Pastors argued that Ireland’s motives for establishing the parish were not entirely positive, but rather a means of discouraging blacks from attending white “national” parishes. Regardless of Ireland’s motives, St. Peter Claver remains an active parish that is well-known for its African American liturgies.
Current location: 375 Oxford St. N.
Timeline:
1888: Founded as a mission to African Americans by Archbishop John Ireland. Located in downtown St. Paul, on Market Street across from Rice Park.
1892: Church erected at Farrington & Aurora Sts.
1954: All church facilities transferred to present site on Oxford St. N.
Clergy: Edward Casey, 1892-95; Thomas Printon 1895-19??, Stephen Theobald 1910-1932, parish’s first Black priest; from British Guiana.
http://www.spcchurch.org/our-history/
- Butler, Jon. "Communities and Congregations: The Black Church in St. Paul: 1860‐1900." The Journal of Negro History 56 (1971): 118-134. Spangler, Earl. The Negro in Minnesota. Minneapolis, Minnesota: T. S. Denison & Company, Inc., 1961. Taylor, David Vassar. African Americans in Minnesota. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002. Taylor, David Vassar. Pilgrim’s Progress: Black St. Paul and the Making of an Urban Ghetto: 1870‐1930. Vol. PhD. 1977: University of Minnesota, 1977.