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As I reflect on the months of January — Pro-Life Month, February — Black History Month and March — Irish Heritage Month, I would like to note a family of 10 children where the eldest son, James Augustine Healy, was born to Michael Healy, an Irishman, and Mary Eliza Smith, a freed slave from Macon, Ga.
James Augustine Healy was valedictorian of the first class to graduate from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. After seminary studies in Montreal and Paris, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest for the Diocese of Boston. He built St. James Church on Harrison Avenue there and served as the first chancellor of the diocese. In 1873, he became the first black Roman Catholic Bishop in the United States of America.
Dolores Bernadette Grier
Manhattan
Miss Grier is a former vice chancellor of the archdiocese.
