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Chapter 1- SMA's Early Presence in America

The American branch of SMA traces its roots to the final years of the nineteenth century. At that time, Father Ignatius Lissner, SMA, fresh from five years as a young missionary in Africa, came to North America and Canada to raise funds among American and Canadian Catholics to help support the work of SMA among the peoples of West Africa.

Fr. Lissner's task was daunting. At the turn of the century, America was still technically a mission territory, itself. Many American Catholics at that time were poor, illiterate, foreign-born peasants. They were poorly instructed in their religion and still uncomfortable in their new culture. Fr. Lissner realized the irony of expecting these Americans to support missions in Africa when they needed so much themselves.

The SMA priest also became aware of the even worse conditions endured by many American blacks, especially in the South. The American Church was struggling to care for "its own," European Catholic immigrants and their American-born descendants. Poverty, racism, and the perception that the pastoral care of Catholic immigrants had priority kept the Church from making more than a feeble attempt to minister to blacks. By this time, the vast majority of blacks belonged to their own independent Protestant churches. Fr. Lissner realized that any outreach by the Church to these blacks would have to come from a source other than the local parishes.

Chapter 2 - SMA's Black Apostolate in America - the Beginnings

Fr. Lissner, a native of Alsace, France, was soon joined by a small band of SMA priests, fellow Alsatians who followed him to America. Together they embraced a whole new ministry and apostolate of SMA missionaries to the black population here. They had a vision of establishing parishes and schools for blacks in the impoverished rural South. To that end they founded and staffed six parishes in Georgia between 1907 and 1914, a tremendous accomplishment considering the miniscule number of Catholics, the grinding poverty, and the virulent religious and racial prejudices in Georgia at that time.

It was Fr. Lissner's goal to have black priests and religious sisters minister to their own people. So, to staff the new schools, Fr. Lissner founded, in 1916, the Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, an all-black community of Sisters headquartered in New York.

He also opened a seminary in Tenafly, New Jersey, in 1921 to train black candidates for the priesthood. These, he thought, would serve in the American South and elsewhere. At the time, the Tenafly seminary was the only one in America to admit blacks. Sadly, in the face of the racism of the time, the seminary closed after a few years, having seen the ordination of only one black priest, Fr. Joseph A. John, SMA. Undaunted, SMAs continued to seek out ways to minister to their new flock.

Chapter 3: Irish Immigration & The War Years

The 1920s saw the next stage of SMA presence in America with the arrival of Fr. Peter Harrington, SMA the first of a steady stream of Irish SMAs that would come to the States during the next 20 years. These men founded and staffed black parishes in Illinois, Arizona, and Los Angeles. They also strengthened SMA presence in New Jersey. Eventually, the Tenafly house became SMA national headquarters, a choice probably influenced by the size of the property and its proximity to New York City, principal gateway from Europe and Africa to the United States.

By the end of the 1930s, it was clear that most of Europe would soon be embroiled in a general war. Ireland would be the sole neutral nation among those where the SMA was established at that time. Seminaries either closed or limped along with a skeleton staff and greatly diminished student body. In nations like France, with the largest group of SMA missionaries, all able-bodied men were conscripted for military service.

An added threat was that contact between the home countries and their African colonies would be interrupted or severed by the hostilities. War would undoubtedly bring grave hardship, and possibly impoverish those who had so generously supported SMA mission efforts in Africa till then. The worst fears were realized when the German armies swept through and occupied Poland, Holland, Belgium, and much of France.

These concerns encouraged SMA leaders to look to the American Church to fill the gaps created by the war. Despite the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United States was still the richest and, potentially, most powerful nation in the world. Also, the impoverished immigrant Church that early SMAs to America encountered in the late 1890s had changed. The American Church was now one of the largest bodies of Catholics in the world. It had a growing middle class, flourishing parishes, increasingly well-educated laity, and many vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

With all these factors in mind, SMA priests in America received permission and encouragement from their superiors in Rome to expand and intensify their work in the States. In March 1941, just a few months before America's entry into World War II, the American Province of SMA was juridically established.

Chapter 4: Building the American Province - Seminaries & Formation

The SMA Fathers in the United States knew that an American Province would succeed only if it became truly "American" and as quickly as possible. In 1939, two years before the Province was formally created, SMA re-established a seminary, this one in Silver Spring, Maryland. Years before, racism had forced the closing of the first SMA seminary, established in New Jersey to train black candidates for the priesthood. The goal of the new one was to recruit white Americans who, after ordination, would staff the black parishes in the U.S. and also become missionaries to Africa where the war had created severe gaps in personnel.

Unfortunately, America's entrance into the war in December 1941, dashed those dreams. Young American men were called to military service, so the only available students were imports from Ireland. After the war, when SMA seminary formation began in earnest, yet another challenge arose. The Maryland house was destroyed by fire. The major seminary moved to Washington, D.C., near the Catholic University of America where SMA candidates did their philosophical and theological studies. A minor seminary was opened in Dedham, Massachusetts, near to Boston with its large Catholic population.

Since then, the SMA formation program has evolved. For a time, SMA seminarians studied at Washington Theological Coalition and later at Maryknoll College and Seminary in Ossining, New York. Currently some SMA students receive their training at the Washington Theological Union in Silver Spring, Maryland while residing in the SMA House of Studies in nearby Takoma Park. Many also study at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey.

Chapter 5: Building the American Province - A Theology of Mission

The American Province of SMA is considered one of the most forward-thinking provinces with an approach to mission that has been called "cutting-edge" in its visionary inclusion of laity.

Advancing a theology of mission which sees the laity as also called to overseas mission, has prompted the American Province to invite skilled and qualified men and women to work alongside priest missionaries, sharing their gifts with SMA and the peoples it serves in Africa and at home. Traditionally the American Province has been involved in the evangelization of Liberia in West Africa and also maintains vibrant missions in Ghana and Kenya.

SMA-USA Today - The Work Continues

As American society has changed, so has the response of SMA. At one time, the Catholic Church in America was weak and impoverished, a reflection of the poor, uneducated immigrants who were its parishioners in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

As those first Catholic immigrants assimilated and their offspring meshed into the mainstream of American society, the Church also flourished and evolved. By the 1960s, the Church in the USA attained a certain maturity. It was at that time of so much social change, that racial integration also took hold, and local dioceses assumed control of what had once been parishes staffed by SMA

In 1979, SMA agreed to staff Queen of Angels Parish, an historic church in the black Central Ward of the Archdiocese of Newark (New Jersey). That remains a vibrant SMA parish in the United States today.

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