Servant of God Thea Bowman statue to be blessed at Jackson cathedral

A bronze statue depicting Servant of God Thea Bowman will be blessed this weekend in Jackson, Mississippi, where the Black Catholic nun served before her death.

A Mass and dedication will take place with Bishop Joseph Kopacz on Saturday, Dec. 21, at the Cathedral of St. Peter, beginning at 11am CT and followed by a reception. 

The statue was made by a local artist and former nun, Mary Davidson, who has previously created works celebrating Black Catholics with her late husband, Dr. Kenneth Davidson.

“We are grateful to all those who have assisted in this wonderful project, especially Mrs. Davidson, who despite her personal tragedy has created an amazing work of art,” Bishop Kopacz told Gulf Pine Catholic earlier this month. 

“I very much look forward to its arrival at the Cathedral.”

The statue is a gift from the bishops of Ecclesiastical Province of Mobile, headed by a former student of Mary Davidson—then Sr Mary Augustine, OP—in Archbishop Thomas Rodi of Mobile. She contacted the prelate in 2022 about plans to create the statue, after first learning of Bowman in 2007.

Her previous works include a Black Christ statue for Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and a bust of the late Joseph Howze, an African American who served as the first Bishop of Biloxi and the first openly Black head of a U.S. diocese since the 19th century.

This latest work, a nearly six-foot-tall bronzework of Bowman, was supported by funding from the estate of the late Bishop Joseph N. Latino of Jackson, and with the blessing of Rodi as well as Bishops Louis Kihneman of Biloxi and Steven Raica of Birmingham. Together with Kopacz, they comprise the Catholic prelates of Mississippi and Alabama.

Davidson completed a life-size clay model earlier this fall, shortly after her husband's death. It was showcased in October to members of a committee connected to its creation, led by Davidson. The mold was then sent to artisans of the Inferno Art Foundry in Union City, Georgia, who used it to produce the final work in bronze.

“Sister Thea’s statue captures her welcoming, vibrant, and loving outreach to all people. The outstretched hands and smile evoke the Sister Thea I remember,” said Jackson Diocese Chancellor Mary Woodward, who said earlier this year that the first phase of Bowman’s canonization cause had reached its halfway point.

Born in 1937, Bowman converted to Catholicism as a child and later became the first Black member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. She was a noted figure of the Civil Rights and Black Catholic movements, traveling the country as an advocate for Black spirituality and against racism in the Church. 

Bowman died of breast cancer in 1990, shortly after giving a historic speech to the U.S. bishops and after being named to receive the University of Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal—the nation’s highest honor for Catholics.

She has since been honored in a variety of forms, with her name serving as the emblem of a number of schools, campus ministries, community centers, choirs, and residence halls across the country. She has also been cast in bronze at least once before, in a bas-relief created by Sheleen Jones for Saint Ursula Academy in Cincinnati earlier this year.

Kopacz, who opened Bowman’s cause for canonization in 2018, plans to house Davidson’s bronze statue at the cathedral in Jackson “until a permanent shrine can be developed,” which presumably would not occur unless her is beatified.

There are currently no African-American blesseds or saints recognized in the Catholic Church, though Bowman is one of seven current candidates. She will apparently be the first among them to have a statue installed at their local cathedral.

Kopacz says that separate from this weekend’s blessing ceremony, an official installation of the statue depicting her will take place in the spring. 

Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.

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