Memphis parish celebrates 70 years with week-long festivities

St. Augustine choir members Lillian Payton (right) and Sheila Branch greet each other with a sign of peace during the 70th anniversary Mass at St. Augustine Church in Memphis. (Photo courtesy Mike Brown/The Commercial Appeal)

by Jeanne Trott

The music and the movement, the colors and the calls streamed from the African American tradition. The prayers and praise were anchored in the Gospel as St. Augustine Church celebrated 70 years as the primary parish for black Catholics in South Memphis. During the last week of August, folks gathered from the neighborhood and from across the country to socialize, dine, pray and parade in honor of the parish, its school, its priests and its people.

“The folks had a wonderful time greeting old classmates, sharing memories and telling stories,” said pastor Father John Geaney, C.S.P.

Sunday Mass for the feast of St. Augustine was the crown of the festivities, Father Geaney said, burnished by St. Augustine’s gospel choir and liturgical dancers. Father Geaney was joined at the altar by Franciscan former pastors and St. Augustine’s deacons Robert Atkins and Andrew Terry.

St. Augustine’s anniversary celebrations will conclude later this year with Bishop Terry Steib, S.V.D., presiding at the closing Eucharist.

St. Augustine parish was created for African-American Catholics by the Bishop of Nashville in 1937, and originally placed in the pastoral direction of the Franciscan Friars of St. Louis. The parish was renamed St. Thomas and relocated in 1966. In moving to its current location in 1988, the parish name returned to St. Augustine. The parish was put under the pastoral care of the Paulist Fathers in September 2002.



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