Whether it was responding to a food desert, preparing meals for visitors or providing a meaty sermon on Sunday morning, Father Donald Sterling sustained his community.
Father Sterling, 74, will retire from active ministry as a priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore Jan. 1.
Ordained in 1974 as the first African-American priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Father Sterling has served as pastor of New All Saints in Liberty Heights since 1992. His touch is seen in the worship space, the liturgy and the welcome strangers receive.
“He is so committed to his ministry, with such a strong sense of spirituality,” said Dr. Thelma Thomas Daley, a parishioner of approximately four decades. “His sermons are like lectures; we learn something that moves us. He’s a priest who is a professor. He’s very collaborative, and likes to relate to people.”
That quality benefitted all of Northwest Baltimore in 2014, when ShopRite of Howard Park opened what was then described as the largest grocery in the city on Liberty Heights Avenue, two blocks from the parish.
“Father Sterling was very involved with community projects,” said Bettye Pettiford, a parishioner since 1974 who is in her second term as parish council president. “With BUILD (Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development), he worked tirelessly to remove the food desert that surrounded the church.”
Father Sterling was a minority student at the former parish school at St. Ann on Greenmount Avenue and Archbishop Curley High School. He studied for the priesthood at Resurrection College in Kitchener, Canada; St. Mary’s Seminary on Paca Street in Baltimore; and St. Mary’s Seminary in Roland Park. Cardinal Lawrence Shehan ordained Father Sterling to the priesthood at St. Ann.
Father Sterling served as associate pastor of St. Cecilia in West Baltimore from 1974 until being named administrator in 1980 and then pastor in 1981. He served at St. Cecilia until coming to New All Saints in 1992.
“He went through a lot,” said Bishop Denis J. Madden, emeritus auxiliary for the archdiocese. “Without being belligerent or accusatory, he was able to share, in a helpful way, what it’s like to be the only Black man in a room.
“Father Don would tell us how it (a proposed action) would affect the (Black) community. I remember one task force saying, ‘We’re going to do this.’ He said, ‘Have you asked them?’ He offered observations that seemed spot on.”
Bishop Madden first got to know him through the late Monsignor Damien Nalepa, who began a 30-year stint at St. Gregory the Great while Father Sterling was the pastor of St. Cecilia. In addition to social justice, the two shared an interest in seeing the world.
Father Sterling’s travels were manifested in the rectory kitchen at New All Saints, where meetings were often preceded by a meal of his creation.
Father Sterling oversaw a reworking of the rectory space, and renovations to the church continued after the parish centennial in 2012.
“He has a vision of where the Catholic Church and the African American community should be, and worked hard to achieve that,” Pettiford said.
In 2018, new windows were installed in the church, with half of them depicting saints from the Americas, such as St. Junipero Serra and St. Kateri Tekakwitha, and including one hopeful, Mother Mary Lange.
“I wanted to reflect the cultural and racial diversity that is part of our history,” Father Sterling told the Review. “There are people we may know by name, but you never see them anywhere.”
Aesthetics involved input from others, among them Adam Scott, another member of the parish council.
“The laity should be involved in every level of church life,” Father Sterling told the Review in 2013. “The more involved church members are, the stronger your parishes are.”
Bishop Madden noted that Father Sterling’s preaching kept him in demand at conferences outside Baltimore. His parishioners experienced his singing in a solo offering of the spiritual, “I’ve Decided to Make Jesus My Choice,” but his ministry extended well beyond the pulpit. When Daley’s husband, Gilbert, took ill, one of the first calls she made was to Father Sterling.
“I doubt I could have gotten through it (his death) without his help,” said Daley, whose teaching credentials include Loyola University Maryland. “Here I am, a professional counselor, yet I called Father Sterling for help.” Auxiliary Bishop Bruce A. Lewandowski, C.Ss.R., urban vicar, celebrated a Nov. 20 Mass at New All Saints in Father Sterling’s honor. During the celebration, the archdiocesan Office of Black Catholic Ministries and the Oblate Sisters of Providence presented Father Sterling with a lithograph of “He Ain’t Heavy,” a painting by the prominent Black artist, Gilbert Young.
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