ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 29, 1992                   TAG: 9203260248
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DAVID BRIGGS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium


PIERRE TOUISSANT: BLACK SAINT OR `UNCLE TOM'?

Pierre Touissant was a slave who remained a servant even as he supported his owner with his own earnings and purchased freedom for others.

He crossed quarantine lines to care for cholera victims, and opened his home to black orphans while he raised funds to begin a white orphanage.

Yet when Old St. Patrick's Cathedral - a monument to the faith he symbolized with his life and one for which he helped raise the funds to build - opened its doors in New York in 1842, Touissant was refused a seat by a white usher who told him there was no space reserved for blacks.

A century and a half later, Catholic Church leaders are proposing Touissant for sainthood for remaining true to his faith and life of charity amid such indignities.

But within the black Catholic community, his proposed elevation has raised concerns that the church may be indirectly legitimizing a servile response to injustice.

Charity and love are not always enough to prevail, according to the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church on Chicago's South Side.

"I think it is ironic that the church would want to choose Touissant as a role model when we're talking about the need for self-esteem and self-determination of the African-American male," Pfleger said.

But Ellen Tarry, a black Catholic and author of "The Other Touissant," said that she concluded - after what she described as a soul-searching journey researching the book - that Touissant was not an Uncle Tom.

Rather, she said, he shared with St. Francis of Assisi an understanding of his essential dignity before God that transcended the discrimination he suffered: "What I am in thy sight, O God, that I am and no more."

Born in 1766 in Haiti, Touissant was a plantation slave. At 21, he followed his owners, the John Berard family, to New York when a slave revolt was brewing that would eventually bring about Haiti's independence.

After John Berard died, Touissant, who had become a sought-after hairdresser who would earn as much as $1,000 per client per year constructing the elaborate foot-high hairstyles of the day, supported the impoverished Mrs. Berard, even returning each night to his servant's role.

At 45, a free man after Mrs. Berard's death, Touissant married a Haitian woman. The couple took in black orphans and raised money to start an orphanage for white children.

James Sullivan, the executive director of Catholics United for the Faith who is researching a book on Touissant, said the former slave showed concern for everyone who appealed to him for help.

"There is almost a perfect realization of love of God and love of neighbor - the two great commandments," Sullivan said.

As opposed to being a doormat, Sullivan said, Touissant achieved a form of Christian perfection by performing charitable acts with a love that the Apostle Paul described in the 13th chapter of I Corinthians - a love that "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

"I think, in some sense, ultimately, the Christian life transcends justice," Sullivan said. "Justice is not the greatest virtue."

"But neither are Christians called to passively accept injustice," Pfleger said.

From the words of the prophet Amos to "let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" to the example of Jesus in calling the Pharisees hypocrites and healing on the Sabbath in violation of religious law, the Bible also calls for action against unjust social structures, Pfleger said.

On its own, St. Sabina in 1977 declared the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a saint. Another candidate for sainthood who modern black Catholics would be more likely to favor than Touissant is Thea Bowman, an outspoken educator and evangelist, Pfleger said.

"The Bible has many other images of faithfulness and sainthood beyond charity and service. It's all of it," he said.

Tarry said that before she could finish her book, she had to confront the enigma of Touissant's unrelenting faith and charity amid injustice.

"I'll tell you in front: I could not write the book until I went to Haiti and prayed and studied," Tarry said. "It was really a spiritual journey for me. Because I am an African-American, and there were some things that were difficult for me to understand."

Her conclusion: Touissant's spirituality helped him rise above his station in life.

"We are all one under the fatherhood of God," she said. "That's what I felt when I finally finished the manuscript."



 by CNB