Jim Crow infested all parts of Prince Powe’s life when he was growing up in Mobile, Ala., in the 1950s — even the realm of God.
The city was a historic center for Black Catholics and the birthplace of the Knights of Peter Claver, founded in 1909 as one of the first Catholic fraternal orders in the country for Black men, at a time when other lay groups wouldn’t accept them.
Powe’s relatives belonged to the Knights, named for a 17th century Spanish Jesuit who ministered to enslaved people in Colombia and is the country’s patron saint. He attended Catholic school and remembers an active community in Mobile filled with baptisms, weddings and first communions.
He also remembers the reality of segregation. Black Catholics had their parishes, while white Catholics had nicer ones. When he asked about joining the local chapter of the Knights of Columbus, the largest Catholic men’s group in the U.S., he was told that Black members were not allowed.
Powe joined the Army, eventually serving two tours in Vietnam. In 1985, he found a job with Xerox and moved to a place not exactly known for its Black community: Orange County.
Of the nation’s 25 biggest metropolitan areas, O.C. is the only one with a Black population of less than 5%. At 2.6%, it’s a slight gain over the 2.1% recorded in the 1990, 2000 and 2010 U.S. censuses.
Yet Powe found the region welcoming and stayed. He became active in church life and was finally able to become a Knight of Columbus.
But Powe felt something was missing in his spiritual life. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, he and other men in the Diocese of Orange formed their own Knights of Peter Claver chapter in 2021.
“I’m so happy we could do this,” said Powe, who looks far younger than his 85 years. “We’re able to show everyone in Orange County who we are.”
I met him in a busy coffee shop in Tustin on a weekday afternoon, along with three other officers of the O.C. chapter. The challenges before them — enlarging the group in an era of declining church attendance, promoting Catholic social teachings in an increasingly secular world, confronting anti-Blackness in American society and within church pews — are the same that other chapters face around the country.
A 2022 Pew Research Center survey found that just 6% of Black Americans are Catholic, and 4% of Catholics are Black, making the Knights of Peter Claver “brothers” minorities twice over.
About 45% of Black Catholics live in the South, according to the Pew report. Long-standing communities exist in Baltimore, Chicago, New York and also Los Angeles, where parishes like St. Brigid and Church of the Transfiguration in South L.A. date back to the Great Migration.
Orange County offers none of that. Its tiny Black population is spread out, meaning there’s no parish that Black Catholics can call theirs. The one church named after a Black saint, St. Martin de Porres, is in Yorba Linda, where Black residents make up just 1% of the population.
“You go into churches, and the angels are always white with blue eyes,” said Gee Padilla, the 46-year-old head of the Knights of Peter Claver O.C. “And the devil is always dark-skinned.”
Members have heard stories from Black Catholics who were told that communion wasn’t meant for them, since they must be Protestant. They know local families who attend Mass in L.A. because they don’t feel comfortable in their own communities.
Although the Diocese of Orange doesn’t keep demographic figures on its congregants, the Knights of Peter Claver leaders shook their heads with wearied smiles about how few Black Catholics they’ve met at their own parishes.
“Just two in 11 years,” said Powe, who attends St. Vincent de Paul in Huntington Beach. “And I just met one this past Sunday.”
“Maybe three,” said Ron Haynes, 66. The Virginia native and lifelong Catholic works as an aerospace engineer and attends St. Anne’s in Seal Beach. He found out about the Knights of Peter Claver from a white priest.
When news got out about the formation of a local chapter, “people were saying, ‘Orange County, California — they want to do that there?’” said Gregory Herr, a retired inspector with the Irvine Ranch Water District. “I can count the Black parishioners at St. Angela Merici [in Brea] with one hand. Maybe two.”
He added, “It’s a daunting thing to figure out what role we can play in here with limited manpower.”
But in their own small way, the Knights of Peter Claver O.C. are succeeding.
The group cosponsored a 2023 gospel Mass at Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove and marched in a procession a few weeks ago that decried the immigration raids terrorizing large swaths of Catholic Southern California. When the Knights held a fundraiser with a goal of $3,000, Haynes said they were “shocked” to reach nearly $5,000.
“I don’t even get that type of support from my friends, let alone a stranger,” Padilla joked.
“Someone believed in us,” Haynes replied.
The group numbers only 20 — double the starting membership. It includes non-Black members, who are allowed in other chapters but aren’t a common sight. Padilla is Latino, and Herr recalls asking “if a white guy like me” could join.
“I could sense the agape right off the page,” said Herr, using the Greek term for the selfless love preached by Jesus, to explain why he wanted in.
Padilla’s road to the group seems the most preordained. Raised in South Gate, he listened to a podcast a few years ago hosted by a Black priest — “I didn’t even know there were Black American Catholics,” admitted Padilla, an ad executive.
Soon after, Padilla visited Colombia. Looking for a church to pray in after finding out his girlfriend was pregnant, he stumbled upon the Sanctuary of St. Peter Claver in Cartagena, which displays its namesake’s remains.
“I always kept a torch out for him after that,” said Padilla, who attends St. Bruno’s in Whittier and joined the Knights of Peter Claver in O.C. after reading about it in a Catholic publication. “I called Brother Greg, and my brothers welcomed me with open arms.”
Father Greg Walgenbach, a founding member, praised the Knights for piercing through the “bubbles” too many Orange County residents live in.
Black Catholics “hadn’t been included” as publicly in Orange County Catholic life before, “but they made their own way and created an inclusive community,” he said.
Walgenbach, who is white, brought up the Creole heritage of Pope Leo XIV, who made history this year as the first U.S.-born pope.
“There’s often a sense in religious studies that Christianity is a white man’s religion,” said the priest, the longtime director of the Diocese of Orange’s Office of Life, Justice and Peace. “But we need to recover ways of talking about our ways and history and saints that don’t just flatten all that richness but really accentuate the richness we have in our community, and that’s what the Knights of Peter Claver do.”
The O.C. members hope that interest in Pope Leo’s background might inspire more Catholic men to find their group.
“When I looked at Pope Leo’s mom, she looked just like the people in Mobile,” a beaming Powe said.
“For me, I was more excited that he was an American,” Haynes replied. “What does that mean for Catholics like me?”
At the Tustin coffee shop, the Knights prayed for guidance from God on their goals for 2025 and beyond. Haynes suggested that the Knights weave themselves into the fabric of O.C. Catholic life with activities like volunteering for Eucharistic ministry or buying textbooks for seminarians.
“Just the visuals to be a Black Catholic doing these things that help all, it’ll show people who we are,” he said.
Haynes and Powe seemed wary when Herr suggested that the group take part in more anti-racism actions and invoked the phrase “Black Lives Matter.”
“All lives matter in the church,” Haynes replied.
“I think as soon as you say that, Brother Greg,” Powe said kindly, “ears are gonna perk up — and not in a good way.”
Padilla suggested volunteering as lectors in Masses across the Orange diocese. The men all nodded.
“Well,” Herr said, “we just hatched a plan.”
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