Sister Thea Bowman's sainthood moving forward to Vatican review

(OSV News) -- Servant of God Thea Bowman's canonization cause is moving ahead, with a Mass and ceremony marking the closure of the cause's diocesan phase to be held Feb. 9 at the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle in Jackson, Mississippi.

Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz of Jackson will celebrate a Mass of thanksgiving at noon followed by an official closing session of the diocesan phase of the canonization process, where the cause's leaders will seal the boxes containing the diocesan phase's documents and findings. Those boxes will be shipped to the apostolic nunciature in Washington for transfer to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints at the Vatican, which will further investigate the cause.

In 2018, Bishop Kopacz opened the cause for Sister Bowman, a Mississippi native and the only African American member of her religious community, the Wisconsin-based Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. Before she died of cancer in 1990 at age 52, she was a widely known speaker, evangelizer and singer.

Sister Bowman was a trailblazer in almost every role: first African-American religious sister from Canton, Mississippi, first to head an office of intercultural awareness, and the first African American woman to address the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Born in 1937 as Bertha Bowman in Yazoo City, Mississippi, she was the daughter of a doctor and a teacher. Nicknamed "Birdie," she attended Canton Holy Child Jesus School, and at age 8 decided she wanted to become a Catholic, inspired by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration teaching at her school. She knew by her early teenage years that she was called to consecrated life.

She took first vows in 1958 and perpetual vows in 1963. She studied at Viterbo College in La Crosse, Wisconsin -- which was founded by her religious community -- and later earned advanced degrees at The Catholic University of America in Washington. She returned to Canton to teach, care for her aging parents and inspire the people in her community.

Sister Bowman led the Jackson Diocese's Office of Intercultural Awareness, taught at several Catholic high schools and colleges, and was a faculty member of the Institute of Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans.

Renowned for her preaching, she took her message across the nation, speaking at Church gatherings and conventions, making 100 speaking engagements a year until her spreading cancer slowed her. Music was especially important to her. She would gather or bring a choir with her and often burst into song during her presentations.

In addition to her writings, her music also resulted in two recordings, "Sister Thea: Songs of My People" and "Round the Glory Manger: Christmas Songs and Spirituals."

When Sister Bowman spoke at the U.S. bishops' meeting in June 1989, less than a year before her death from bone cancer and confined to a wheelchair, she was blunt. She told the bishops that people had told her black expressions of music and worship were "un-Catholic."

Sister Bowman challenged that notion, pointing out that the Church universal included people of all races and cultures, and she challenged the bishops to find ways to consult those of other cultures when making decisions. She told them they were obligated to better understand and integrate not just black Catholics, but people of all cultural backgrounds.

Catholic News Service reported that her remarks "brought tears to the eyes of many bishops and observers." She also sang to them and, at the end, had them all link hands and join her in singing "We Shall Overcome."

That fall, the Thea Bowman Foundation was founded to support black Catholic education at all levels. In its first year, the foundation gave scholarships to 46 black students at U.S. Catholic colleges and universities. It also established an annual award for outstanding contributions to black Catholic education.

Less than a week before her death at age 52 in March 1990, she was announced as the winner of the Laetare Medal, awarded by the University of Notre Dame. Other honors included the American Cancer Society's Courage Award, given at the White House in 1988, and U.S. Catholic magazine's U.S. Catholic Award in 1989 for contributions to the advancement of women in Church and society.

At her funeral Mass in Jackson, Father John Ford, a member of the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity and a longtime friend of the nun who served as homilist, told the 1,000 mourners who packed the church: "We must find ways to imitate this woman. No other one is coming. We need to find ways to imitate Thea."

In what was likely her last writing -- a posthumously published column in Mississippi Today, the Jackson diocesan newspaper -- she asked readers observing Holy Week to "see the Son of Man riding on an ass' colt, to feel the press of the crowd, to be caught up in the 'Hosannas,'" and then as Holy Week goes on, to "watch as Jesus is sentenced by Pilate to Calvary, to see him rejected, mocked, spat upon, beaten and forced to carry a heavy cross, to hear the echo of the hammer, to feel the agony of torn flesh and strained muscles, to know Mary's anguish."

By the mid-1990s, Catholic schools in Gary, Indiana, East St. Louis, Illinois, and Port Arthur, Texas opened bearing her name. Other schools and centers have also since adopted her name. In 2023, the Catholic student center at Howard University in Washington was also named in her honor.

Sister Bowman also was the focus of several books, including 1993's "Thea Bowman: Shooting Star -- Selected Writings and Speeches," 2008's "This Little Light: Lessons in Living From Sister Thea Bowman," and 2010's "Thea's Song: The Life of Thea Bowman."

Sister Bowman was the focus of the 2022 documentary "Going Home Like a Shooting Star: Thea Bowman's Journey to Sainthood." She was among people featured in the 2025 documentary "Trailblazers of Faith," which tells the story of how African Americans have embraced the Catholic faith without abandoning their culture.