First U.S. Black Archbishop Sees ‘Sign of Hope’

Bishop Eugene A. Marino, named Tuesday as the first black Roman Catholic archbishop in the United States, said his appointment as head of the Atlanta archdiocese is “a great sign of hope to all our people.”

The appointment by Pope John Paul II comes more than two years after Marino and other black bishops wrote a pastoral letter calling on the church to increase the number of blacks in official positions.

“The church has spoken but has the church listened to itself?” said the letter, suggesting that in the absence of a major appointment such as a black archbishop in a big city, “the church’s commitment to black leadership may be seen as half-hearted and superficial.”

10,000 Blacks in Archdiocese

The Atlanta archdiocese has 10,000 blacks among its 156,000 Catholics, officials said. Of 52 million Catholics nationwide, an estimated 1.3 million are black.

Marino said he could see in his appointment “a sign of hope to all men and women of good will that the church recognizes its wealth within its own ranks. . . . “

“I think that this appointment is a sign of hope to all minorities that the church in general” and the Pope in particular are sensitive to the needs of blacks, he said.

Marino, 53, one of 12 black bishops in the United States, has served as an auxiliary bishop in the Washington archdiocese since 1974. In 1985, he was elected secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the first black to hold an office in the organization.

He is a member of the Society of St. Joseph, formed in the late 1800s to work in the black community.

After meeting Tuesday with some of the 200 priests in the archdiocese, Marino led a noontime Mass at the Cathedral of Christ the King before returning to Washington. He will be formally installed on May 5, succeeding Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan, who died last Oct. 15.