By Michael Motes

When the Most Reverend Jean Jadot, Apostolic Delegate in the United States consecrates Atlanta's vicar general Monsignor Eusebius Joseph Beltran as Bishop of the Diocese of Tulsa on April 20, it will be the fifth elevation to the episcopate deeply rooted in the annals of Georgia history.

Dating back almost 150 years to the birth on a Georgia plantation of a child destined to become the first black bishop in this country, Georgia has played an important role in the lives of five United States Bishops.

During the next few weeks, we will explore the lives of these Churchmen, who at one period in the course of their careers considered Georgia their home.

Part One - Bishop James Augustine Healy

When Michael Morris Healy, an Irish immigrant fell fortunate drawer in the Georgia Land Lottery of 1,300 acres of rich bottom land near the Okmulgee River in Jones County in 1823, he established what was to become a prosperous plantation there.

Falling in love with Eliza Smith, a mulatto who had been born a slave in Georgia, Healy entered a common law marriage agreement in 1829. Laws of the period forbid lawful union between the races, therefore no formal marriage could be declared.

On April 6, 1830, Eliza gave birth to a son who was named James Augustine. Nine more children would follow, three of whom would die at an early age, not an uncommon occurrence of the period. The surviving children achieved individual renown and it was the Church that brought the majority of them fame.

Although situated in a remote area of the state, the Healy home was one of education and refinement for the day. Existing records show that the large log home was handsomely furnished and contained a library of more than 100 books, not large by today's standards but quite unusual in the long ago.

The Healy children were taught music, including lessons on the flute and fiddle, and the basics of a fundamental education by their father.

But there was one thing that their father could not do for his children, and that was secure that they were free. In addition to being his children, the Healy offspring were also Michael's property. Since emancipation could not be obtained for their slave-born mother, the law of the time made the younger Healys slaves by birth.

In the autumn of 1837, Michael Healy went to New York City and, with the help of friends and relatives who had emigrated there from Ireland, he undertook a desperate search for a school in the Northern "free states" that would educate his swarthy-skinned bushy-haired youngsters in an environment free in insinuation about their mixed parentage.

He found a Quaker school in Flushing, New York, that would accept them. Unfortunately, although administrators of the school patronized the ideals of brotherly love, the students with whom James and his brothers were in constant contact did not uphold the school's traditions when it came to the "boys from Georgia." The Healy brothers, including Patrick and Sherwood who would also later become priests, were bracketed with racial slurs because of their Negro blood, on one hand, and scorned because of their immigrant Irish Catholic ancestry, on the other.

Through the intervention of Bishop John Fitzpatrick of Boston, whom Michael Healy met on a boat trip up the Atlantic coast and informed of his sons' unhappiness in the Quaker school, it was arranged for James, Hugh, Patrick and Sherwood Healy to be sent to Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts. Bishop Fitzpatrick also arranged for Martha Healy, one of Michael's daughters, to live with members of his own family in Boston and to be enrolled in the Notre Dame Sisters' school there.

Both Michael and Eliza Healy died in 1850, and by this time all of their surviving children were away from Georgia being educated in free states.

James excelled at Holy Cross and graduated first in his class the year before his parents' death. His Jesuit instructors had allowed him to develop his natural abilities for philosophy, history and literature and the inspiring religious atmosphere had deepened his personal faith. He felt that he was being called to the priesthood and was accepted for studies at the Sulpician Seminary in Montreal.

His past and mixed racial background returned to haunt James in 1850 when he was about to receive his minor orders. Since his parents had not been legally married, he could not prove his own legitimacy. He appealed to his old family friend Bishop Fitzpatrick and a dispensation was granted within a year, based on the fact that no Roman Catholic priest had been in the area of Georgia in 1829 when Michael and Eliza entered their common law marriage agreement.

In 1852, James transferred to the Sulpician Seminary in France. He continued to excel in his studies and was ordained at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris on June 10, 1854.

His worries that he would be unacceptable in white communities had once almost forced James to abandon his dream of parish work and become a seminary teacher. Acceptance by the poor, especially the children in the slums of Paris, dispelled this fear and Father Healy was ready to begin his ministry.

Returning to the United States the year of his ordination, Father Healy worked among the poor in Boston and was readily accepted by the flood of Irish immigrants. Young boys in an orphans' home and the immigrants of the ghetto in Bishop Fitzpatrick's Boston Diocese were his first flock.

In the hope of relieving their suffering, Father Healy daily faced contagion from smallpox, tuberculosis and typhus in their disease-ridden hovels. In spite of the gathering storm of discontent over the slave issue, these parishioners found consolation in the priest's personal holiness, burning compassion and warm friendship.

For 21 years, Father Healy served in Boston. He became Bishop Fitzpatrick's secretary; the first Chancellor of the diocese; the assistant of St. John's Church; the rector of the cathedral, and the pastor and builder of Boston's St. James Church. He was active in welfare work and civic life and played a decisive role in the development of the Home for Destitute Catholic Children, the House of the Good Shepherd, St. Anne's Foundling Home and the Catholic Laymen's Union.

His great friend and benefactor Bishop Fitzpatrick died in 1866 and by this time Father Healy was recognized as one of the most outstanding clergymen in New England.

His career had not gone unnoticed and his faithfulness to his calling was rewarded in February 1875 when Pope Pius IX named him Bishop of Portland, Maine, where he was consecrated on June 2, 1875. For 25 years, he governed his large diocese, supervising also the founding of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, when it was cut off from Portland in 1885. During his bishopric, his diocese added more than 60 parishes, 68 mission stations, 18 new schools and convents and a series of well-developed welfare institutions.

Bishop Healy also gained fame as an homilist and orator and was a frequent guest speaker at civic and ecclesiastical functions throughout the New England states. Among his other activities were his contributions to American Church law at the Baltimore Council of 1884 and his work as a consultant to the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior in Washington. On his Silver Jubilee as a bishop, he was named assistant at the Papal Throne.

Bishop James Augustine Healy, the first black United States bishop, died on August 5, 1900, of heart failure. In accordance with his expressed will, he was buried in a Catholic cemetery among the flock he so dearly loved.

Of his brothers, Father Patrick Healy became a teacher and later President of Georgetown University, being the first black to hold that position. Father Sherwood Healy became famous for his work as rector of Boston Cathedral, using his musical talent to form the Boston Choral Union which helped raise funds for a new Cathedral. Michael Healy became a noted sea captain and it is believed that Jack London used him as a basis for The Sea Wolf. His sisters Amanda, Eliza and Martha all entered religious orders, the latter withdrawing however to live at the family home in Massachusetts purchased with funds from their father's estate. Sisters Amanda and Eliza became noted educators.

On June 8, 1975, a bronze plaque was dedicated in Jones County, Georgia, commemorating the Georgia-born Bishop. The plaque was a gift from Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan of Atlanta and Bishop Raymond Lessard of Savannah, who, with more than 200 persons, paused to remember this most remarkable man who had become a bishop a century before.

A biography entitled Bishop Healy: Beloved Outcast was written by Father Albert S. Foley, SJ, in 1970.