Servant of God Thea Bowman (1937–1990) was a trailblazer in almost every role: first African-American religious sister from Canton, Miss., 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 Mississippi Dec. 29, 1937, then-Bertha Bowman converted to Catholicism at the age of 9. Missionary priests and sisters began a Catholic school in her hometown to provide a better education for Black children, and it did not discriminate.
The Gospel-filled joyfulness of those missionaries attracted the young Bowman to the faith. This same joyfulness became a hallmark trait of hers later on. Bowman was so attracted to their way of life that at 15 she went on a hunger strike to get her parents’ permission to enter as an aspirant with her teachers’ order, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Life in the convent did not protect her from racial prejudice, but she won people over with her joyful, outgoing demeanor and love for Christ and the Church. The daughter of a doctor and a teacher, Sister Thea — her name given upon taking religious vows — was intellectually gifted. She earned a doctorate in English at The Catholic University of America in Washington and subsequently served in a variety of teaching roles.
After she, as an only child, returned home to take care of her parents in 1978, Sister Thea served as director for intercultural affairs in the Diocese of Jackson. She dedicated herself to overcoming divisions in the Church and society in the wake of the Second Vatican Council and the racial strife of the 1960s.
As a writer, teacher, musician and evangelist, Sister Thea preached the Gospel to clergy and laity alike, promoting ecclesial and cultural harmony and reconciliation as a tireless spokeswoman for the Black Catholic experience.
Pledging to “live until I die,” Sister Thea remained wholeheartedly committed to her ministry while battling breast cancer for several years. She died March 30, 1990, in Canton and her cause for canonization was opened in 2018.
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