From Mission to Parish: St. Peter Claver Catholic Church, Lexington, Kentucky

Southeastern Geographer Vol. XXXXI, No. 2, November 2001, pp. 296-305 RESEARCH NOTE FROM MISSION TO PARISH: ST. PETER CLAVER CATHOLIC CHURCH, LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY1 Owen Dwyer and Mary Gilmartin The sweeping economic and demographic changes that have transformed the post-World War II South into a diverse, economically vital region have, among other consequences, prompted the marked growth of the Catholic Church in that region (Webster, 2000). In Lexington, Kentucky, no fewer than eight parishes, all of them built in the city's suburbs, have been created over the past 50 years, and there are plans for more in the near future (Weglicki, 1 993). Not surprisingly, given American Catholicism's European heritage, the vast majority of worshipers attending these parishes are White. In light of these trends, St. Peter Claver2 church, an inner-city, century-old African American parish in Lexington, offers a point of contrast that illustrates the contours ofthe evolving verities ofrace and religion in the South. In addition to constituting a minority among Catholics, the Black parishioners of St. Peter Claver are also a minority among Black Christians more generally, most of whom belong to Protestant denominations (Maring, 1967; Lincoln and Mayima, 1990; Raboteau, 1995). Further differentiating St. Peter Claver is the fact that, unlike other Catholic parishes, which are spatially delimited and must draw their parishioners from within a given geographic area, St. Peter Claver is considered by ecclesiastical authorities to be an "ethnic" parish and, as a result, has no spatial boundaries. Rather, St. Peter Claver draws its parishioners from throughout the diocese . Since almost all of its parishioners claim some African American ancestry, the parish indeed has "boundaries," albeit ones associated with racial identity rather than with lines on a diocesan map. Finally, St. Peter Claver differentiates itself from other churches in the South—Catholic and Protestant—inasmuch as the presence of a thriving Black parish in a White-dominated organization contradicts the acts of personal and institutional racism that mar the history of Catholicism in the United States (Lucas, 1970; Zielinski, 1988; Davis, 1990; Ochs, 1990; Woods, 1993). BLACKAND WHITE IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. As of 1990, the 2 million black Catholics in the United States accounted for nearly 10% ofall African Americans who attended church (Davis, 1990; Greeley, 1990). Although many of these 2 Dr. Dwyer is Assistant Professor ofGeography at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN 46202-5140. E-mail: odwyer@ iupui.edu. Ms. Gilmartin is Lecturer, Department ofInternational Studies, Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Lane, Nottingham NGU 8NS, United Kingdom. Email : mary. Gilmartin@ntu. ac. uk. ST. PETER CLAVER CATHOLIC CHURCH297 Fig. 1. Concentrations of Roman Catholics in Kentucky. million are recent immigrants from Haiti and the Caribbean, Catholicism has a long history in the African American community, stretching back to colonial times (Maring, 1967; Miller and Wakely, 1983; Miller, 1988; Davis, 1990; Raboteau, 1995). While small in comparison to Protestant denominations, Catholic slaveholders in Louisiana, Maryland, South Carolina, and Kentucky established Catholicism among their African slaves. In Kentucky, Black Catholics were initially concentrated in the Bluegrass region as a result of the migration of Maryland planters and slaves who arrived in the late 18th century in search of fecund soils (Bowles, 1976). This spatial distribution contrasts with that of European Catholics who immigrated to the Ohio River Valley in the 19th century, settling in the manufacturing centers of Louisville, Covington, and Cincinnati (Fig. 1). Throughout the 19th century, the number of Black Catholics in the United States remained small. For instance, immediately following the Civil War and Emancipation, there were less than 50,000 Black Catholics in the United States (Davis, 1990). In response, Catholic leaders established charitable and missionary organizations to attract African Americans to Catholicism (Ochs, 1990). These evangelization efforts, however, were undermined by racism: while Catholic leaders saw in African Americans a remarkable missionary opportunity, they considered Blacks unfit for leadership positions within the church. The informal policy of denying Blacks access to the priesthood illustrates this tension (Davis, 1990; Lucas, 1970; Ochs, 1990). In the context of recent European immigrants striving to secure jobs, housing, political influence, and social status, often at the expense of Blacks, Asians, and Mexicans, Catholic clergy argued that...