Founded in Baltimore in 1828 by a French Sulpician priest and a
mulatto Caribbean immigrant, the Oblate Sisters of Providence
formed the first permanent African American Roman Catholic
sisterhood in the United States. It still exists today. Exploring
the antebellum history of this pioneering sisterhood, Diane Batts
Morrow demonstrates the centrality of race in the Oblate
experience.
By their very existence, the Oblate Sisters challenged prevailing
social, political, and cultural attitudes on many levels. White
society viewed women of color as lacking in moral standing and
sexual virtue; at the same time, the sisters' vows of celibacy flew
in the face of conventional female roles as wives and mothers. But
the Oblate Sisters' religious commitment proved both liberating and
empowering, says Morrow. They inculcated into their communal
consciousness positive senses of themselves as black women and as
women religious. Strengthened by their spiritual fervor, the
sisters defied the inferior social status white society ascribed to
them and the ambivalence the Catholic Church demonstrated toward
them. They successfully persevered in dedicating themselves to
spiritual practice in the Roman Catholic tradition and their
mission to educate black children during the era of slavery.