Galveston Juneteenth Mass marks holiday’s 160th anniversary with faith and courage

A Gospel choir leads worship during a Juneteenth Mass celebrated by Daniel Cardinal DiNardo on June 19 at St. Mary Cathedral Basilica in Galveston as part of the Region X Unity Explosion conference, a three-day gathering for Catholics of African Descent. (Photo by James Ramos/Herald)GALVESTON — As a Gospel choir raised their voices to the heavens, some 260-plus Catholics centered their eyes on the Eucharist during a Mass celebrated on Juneteenth at St. Mary Cathedral Basilica in Galveston. The Mass was part of the Region X Unity Explosion conference held in mid-June in the Bay Area primarily for Catholics of African Descent. 

Presided over by Daniel Cardinal DiNardo, the June 19 Mass marked a watershed moment for the conference, one that brought a public witness of faith to Galveston, just three city blocks from where U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston on June 19, 1865, and issued General Order No. 3 that declared “all slaves are free,” according to the Texas Historical Commission. 

For Doris Barrow III, who serves as a campus minister of the Newman Center at Texas Southern University, a historically Black university in Houston, said it was challenging but meaningful and emotional day to celebrate in Galveston on Juneteenth. He said it meant a great deal to know the history of Juneteenth and see its impact that flowed through Galveston.

Barrow recalled Bishop Edward Braxton, one of a number of African-American prelates to lead a diocese, who referred to the slave, the freeing of the enslaved and free human beings as being “a gift.” 

“It reminded me of even people within my own family, my ancestors,” Barrow said. “It made me think about my grandparents, great-grandparents. I’m tremendously grateful in the moment that an opportunity for me to exist, [and] for me to even do what I do [as a campus minister]. I attribute it to my ancestors helping to pave the way to ensure that those opportunities were made available.”

Attendees took a panoramic tour of Galveston, visiting Holy Rosary Church, the longtime spiritual home for Black Catholics on the island. They also viewed the “Absolute Equality” mural that marks the location where Gen. Granger proclaimed that emancipation had arrived in Texas on June 19, 1865, almost three years after the 1862 issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. 

Juneteenth would become a state holiday in 1979 and a national holiday in 2021. Since 1865, across the island, block parties, walking parades and other celebrations have marked the holiday, now joined by the conference.

As the vicar for Catholics of African Descent, Father Reginald Samuels has the unique perspective and ministry of serving Catholics who come from a long lineage of diasporic African cultures, either by forced dispersion such as the slave trade or by chosen migration in recent decades.

After concelebrating the Mass, Father Samuels said the day was a difficult but enriching day. 
“We are celebrating the 160th anniversary of the proclamation, the start of us. Our humanity was restored back to us here; we are no longer slaves here. Juneteenth started here,” he said. “The proclamation went out to all of these people who were still enslaved.”

God has brought us and this community so far, Father Samuels said.

“From being enslaved to having a voice. For 150 years, our humanity was denied,” he said. “Now God has helped us get back our humanity, to bring us whole and to make this nation on the road, making it whole. We’re still not there, but we’re on our way. We’re on our way.”

Amy Auzenne, director of the Archdiocesan Office of Evangelization and Catechesis, saw a connection between Juneteenth and the newly elected Pope Leo XIV, whose maternal ancestry are Creole free people of color from Louisiana. The future pope was ordained a priest on June 19, 1982, in Rome. 

At Mass, Auzenne said she was fighting back tears as she joined the choir in singing “We’ve Come This Far By Faith,” the popular African American hymn.

“It is so powerful to see how God is alive and moving in this community, knowing how hard we had to fight for our dignity, inside and outside the Church, to know that the Spirit of God is so faithful that He has never abandoned us. He never left us,” she said. “God never saw us the way the world saw us.”

She also found solace and courage in the unity of the group: “When we sing these words... we tell ourselves that story, but we also proclaim it to the Universal Church, because it’s a gift that this community carries and that we share, and that, frankly, the universal Church needs. The universal Church needs the witness of this community to be the whole and complete Body of Christ.”

In his homily, Cardinal DiNardo lauded those gifts of the African American Catholic experience, calling them “very significant” and “marvelous” for the Church and its ministry, life of Sacraments and celebration. 

He said the remarkable Catholic experience has produced great saints, great people of witness and a good number of priests, also encouraging the faithful to nurture vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

“Always listen to God’s word,” he said. “It’s powerful, it’s potent, it’s God’s word working in you. The whole Church will benefit.”