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ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Cathedral Basilica has long been a world-class destination for Catholics and others who appreciate the Byzantine interior. More than 41 million mosaic pieces, arranged high on the walls and domed ceilings, tell epic stories from the Bible and Catholic history.

“In this case, the devil is not in the details — God is in the details,� Laurie Ayers, 63, a Methodist from Minnesota, said in awe during a recent guided tour.

Out of all of the murals, she said, her eyes were naturally drawn to the words “Racial Justice� in a section featuring Cardinal Joseph Ritter, who, amid protest, ordered St. Louis Catholic schools desegregated in 1947. Decree in hand, Ritter is portrayed as a hero, but key details about the obstacles he was trying to overcome are not part of the Eurocentric mosaics and tour:

The Roman Catholic experience in St. Louis was shaped by Christian leaders who enslaved people, referring to them like livestock or other property in church records and correspondence.

In 2018, lagging behind Catholic religious orders that also built frontier outposts into thriving ministries, the St. Louis archdiocese embarked on an effort to give a fuller account of its troubled past. The archdiocese says it has since identified 87 people enslaved by former clergy.

Among the enslavers were : Louis William DuBourg, bishop of Louisiana and the Floridas; St. Louis Bishop Joseph Rosati and Archbishop Peter Kenrick, who was at the helm from 1843 to 1895, a period of tremendous growth.

Other Catholic luminaries, such as St. Rose Philippine Duchesne and Dr. , who feature prominently in the mosaics, also were slaveholders.

In October, the archdiocese hosted a national conference meant to encourage transparency with records that document Catholic slaveholding. Organizers said knowing the stories and clues, found in anything from old financial ledgers to personal letters, are necessary to begin acknowledging and reconciling with the past.

Black Catholics in St. Louis say this legacy still shapes the archdiocese today, even as it closes parishes in predominantly Black areas as part of its “All Things New� consolidation. They say something more meaningful should be done to commemorate those enslaved by the church.

“It’s very important because I would assume there are still descendants here,� said Abraham Lopez, 67, a Black Catholic who’s been driving from O’Fallon, Missouri, to St. Augustine Catholic Church in north St. Louis for years to attend Mass. “It would be nice to recognize those folks in some fashion. I don’t know what form, but to say, ‘Yeah, you are part of the history of the church’. Seems like we dedicate and honor people for all sorts of things.�

Eric Fair, director of Archives and Records for the archdiocese, has advocated for the research project, now called “Forgive Us Our Trespasses.� In a lengthy interview in late December, his voice cracked when stressing the importance of the work his team was doing.

“You always have to acknowledge sin. It’s part of being a Christian,� he said. “And this is clearly a case where the church has sinned.�

And yet, more than five years since the project began, Fair was unaware if the history they’ve unearthed is part of the curriculum at Catholic schools such as Bishop DuBourg High, which is named after one of the slaveholders. Archivists for the archdiocese haven’t published a report with narrative stories that lay out the saga.

When asked, Fair said that the first report of findings would come together in early 2024 and be posted this spring on the website of the archdiocese’s Office of Racial Harmony, created in 2019. He said the report will cover what the project is, how it came about and findings regarding the three bishops who owned enslaved people. He said there will be a reference to the names that have been uncovered, with information to how they were found.

“We have been open with our process the whole way,� he said.

In early January, Fair said by email that he should be able to release the 87 names uncovered so far to the Post-Dispatch. Then he refused, pending a meeting with the “Forgive Us Our Trespasses� leadership team. After the Thursday meeting, he said, community outreach will be an important part of the next phase of the project. Fair stressed that many of the people on the list are only identified by nickname, first name or, in some cases, as “child of� another enslaved person.

“I feel the weight of this responsibility, and I’m dedicated to ensuring the stories of the enslaved persons are told,� he said.

The closest the archdiocese has come to publicizing the list has been at an annual Maafa Procession the past two summers that’s titled after the Swahili word for “disaster.� According to a flyer for the event: “We commemorate the approximately two million lives lost during the Middle Passage of the Atlantic slave trade, attest to our broken past, and ask God to lead us on a path of acknowledgment, penance, forgiveness and healing.�

“We actually start in the Old Cathedral,� Joyce Jones, director of the Office of Racial Harmony, said in an interview about the procession. “It was one of the first places that we know enslaved people worshiped.�

There has been some resistance to history.

“We hear people say, ‘Oh, that was 400 years ago, you know, you should be over it by now. It didn’t affect you, right?’� Jones said of slavery. “You can’t put an end date on trauma.�

Eventually, she foresees “some sort of sculpture or something� being added to the Old Cathedral museum by the Arch grounds. While finding descendants of those enslaved by Catholic clergy is a project goal, she said, money hasn’t been set aside yet to cover that piece of the effort.

“I want us to move forward in a way that people won’t feel threatened by what we are doing,� she said.

‘Profiting from the slavery system’

The unapologetic book, “,� had a sense of urgency when it came out in 1990.

“Too often black Catholics have been ignored in conventional assessments of American Catholicism,� wrote Cyprian Davis, a Benedictine monk who was African American. “In the light of history, they cannot be ignored. They add another essential perspective to the meaning of the word ‘Catholic’ and to the understanding of the American Catholic church.�

Davis described DuBourg, a bishop in the Louisiana Territory, as someone born into aristocracy who “had no problems, it would seem, in profiting from the slavery system.�

“As a slaveowner, he provided the Vincentians in Missouri with their first slaves and helped them acquire others,� Davis wrote. “He was willing to use his slaves as collateral to borrow money and as investments for other financial ventures.�

Rosati, the first bishop of St. Louis, was a Vincentian who helped establish the religious order in the United States, including a seminary, St. Mary’s of the Barrens, in Perryville.

Davis acknowledged Ivan James, of St. Louis, for helping inform his book. James converted to Catholicism in his 30s, after being refused entry to engineering school in Missouri for being Black. He went to college instead in Milwaukee, then returned to St. Louis.

Among his works, James produced a 27-page pamphlet about the history of Black Catholics in St. Louis. One timeline begins with their first school, run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, at Third and Poplar streets. An angry mob threatened the sisters. After a little over one year in operation, Kenrick closed the school in 1846. The Missouri Legislature subsequently passed :

“No person shall keep or teach any school for the instruction of negroes or mulattoes, in reading or writing, in this State.� The law, enacted in 1847, also required Black people who held religious assemblies to have a police presence to prevent “seditious speeches, and disorderly or unlawful conduct of every kind.�

After the Civil War, the Jesuits, another Catholic religious order that enslaved people in the St. Louis region, wanted to open a parish for Blacks in the city. It was called St. Elizabeth’s. As archbishop, Kenrick officially supported the effort, while firmly noting “no pews shall be rented to any other than colored people, no sacraments ever administered there to whites.�

The parish opened in 1873. Cardinal Ritter closed it in 1951 to encourage racial integration.

James, who vowed to write about local church history “forever,� died in 2014 at age 98. His son, Edward, 77, of Normandy, said he hadn’t heard of the archdiocese’s effort to atone for its racist history, initially by identifying their former slaves and slaveholders by name.

“I think he would say it is a good first step,� Edward said of his father. “If you don’t bring it out, then you will do more of a disservice.�

But Edward, who is no longer a practicing Catholic, wondered how many steps the archdiocese will take.

“How deep are they willing to go, and what price are they willing to pay to ease their conscience?� he said.

Black Catholics react

The number of Black Catholics has fallen to about 7,000 to 8,000, less than 2% of the estimated 440,000 Catholics in the archdiocese, which covers the city and 10 surrounding counties in eastern Missouri. The Black Catholic community in north St. Louis is seeing some of the starkest changes in the “All Things New“ restructuring shepherded by Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski, as it did in previous consolidations.

Fewer congregants don’t justify keeping the same infrastructure. Four parishes have been clustered together to figure out efficiencies: St. Augustine in Hamilton Heights; Our Lady of Holy Cross in Baden; St. Elizabeth, Mother of John the Baptist in Penrose; and St. Matthew in the Ville.

To this day, some of the faithful there still carry the history of segregation around with them.

“When my parents came to St. Louis in the ’40s, to St. Matthews, they were not allowed to sit in the front pews. They had to sit in the back,� said Claire Hay, 69. “Prejudice goes a long way. Racism goes a long way.�

She wasn’t surprised to hear that early bishops had slaves.

“The white male always wanted somebody below them and somebody to cater to them,� she said.

She said it’s notable that the archdiocese hasn’t found descendants of people enslaved by its clergy — a contrast with what Jesuits did at St. Louis University.

“I don’t think they are going to do a lot of research,� she said. “Just look at the political atmosphere right now.�

And yet it was educational opportunity that brought her parents to St. Louis from New Orleans years ago. Part of the Great Migration, they wanted to be close to family members who studied nursing at Homer G. Phillips Hospital, the first teaching hospital for Black people west of the Mississippi River. She went to local Catholic schools. She said she remains Catholic because of “my family history� and the “history of the Bible.�

But her 49-year-old son drifted off.

“They have nobody to connect with,� she said of young Black Catholics. “It helps if there is somebody who looks like you, can be a mentor to you. If you don’t have that, what do you do? You drop out.�

She has seen a lot of Black Catholics leave the church in her lifetime.

“I think maybe they don’t feel included,� she said.

Kim Spain, 58, is still in. She also attends St. Matthews and volunteers down the street at Claver House, named after the patron saint of slaves. She said some type of memorial “to help promote healing� should be placed at Catholic cites where slaves built things and served.

But she struggles to delve into the history of the church she loves. It’s too painful, she has a full plate.

“I am so busy to make sure people are fed who don’t have enough to eat,� she said. “I am down at the very core needs of the community that I don’t have that type of fight in me.�

Ronda Smith Branch, 40, was one of four people who showed up on a recent Wednesday night for a Young Adult People of Color ministry event. She worships at St. Alphonsus Liguori “Rock� Catholic Church.

She says it can be a struggle to stay Catholic, given interactions that trigger past trauma, including being singled out and essentially told to “shut up and dribble� and “don’t make waves� when she attended Rosati-Kain High School.

She said there is “absolutely� a “through-line� from slaveholding to the present, one that continues to influence the Black Catholic experience in St. Louis. While it’s good for church leaders to acknowledge the past, Branch said they need to fund “the healing work that has to be done.�

“To me that would solidify the commitment,� she said. “There is still more work that has to be done.�

Seeing Christ

The green-domed Basilica in the Central West End, commonly called the New Cathedral, draws thousands of tourists each year. It’s also been a spiritual home for devout Catholics for more than a century.

“I have been made to feel extremely welcome,� said Beatrice Parwatikar, 81.

She grew up in New York and traces her family roots to a South Carolina plantation. For years, she worked as a nurse in St. Louis.

She attends Mass multiple times a week and can often be found, silently praying, below the mosaic murals.

She knows the missing details.

“A lot of the things in the United States were built on the backs of Black people and also Natives whose land was taken,� she said.

That’s particularly heavy in the context of Christian leadership.

“These people would have brought insight into what is humane because they were religious, but what happened is, they were people of their time,� she said. “That’s what we are finding. I am not excusing it, but it’s something people need to understand.�

She looked up at the Basilica walls, reminisced in the “courage� of Cardinal Ritter.

“He had a vision beyond what was there,� she said. “This man stood up.�

She was encouraged that he learned a valuable lesson that his predecessors who helped build the archdiocese apparently had not.

“Somewhere, he must have been taught that all humans are the same,� she said. “If you don’t see everyone as brother and sister, then you have not seen Christ.�