BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — A priest who founded Brooklyn's first parish for black Catholics could become a saint.
Msgr. Bernard John Quinn, founder of Church of St. Peter Claver in Bedford-Stuyvesant, received a unanimous vote of approval from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to progress to the next step toward sainthood.
Quinn was born in 1888 and ordained to the priesthood in 1912.
After ministering to sick and wounded soldiers in France during World War I, he returned to Brooklyn in 1922 and worked with a group called the Colored Catholic Club to establish a church at 29 Claver Place and Jefferson Avenue.
Later on, he founded Little Flower Children Services, starting with an orphanage in Long Island for African-American children. The building was burned to the ground twice by the Ku Klux Klan, according to reports, but Quinn rebuilt it each time.
He died at the age of 52 in 1940.
The Father Bernard John Quinn Guild was established in 2009 to advance his cause for canonization and a group at the Church of St. Peter Claver meets weekly for a novena in his name.
“We’re praying very hard,” said Stanley Davis, who has been a member at the church for the past 55 years. “This church has been a beacon in this neighborhood.
“We got a history that we could be very proud of. And if we get that saint, that’ll go through the ceiling. He deserves it, he really cared about people.”
In 2010, Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio officially opened the inquiry into Quinn’s cause of canonization.
“That ministry did not end upon his death but has continued to grow and take root in the hearts and souls of the faithful and clergy of this church in New York, which has continually ministered to the poor and oppressed,” DiMarzio said in 2010.
“I am delighted to be given the privilege to preside at the opening of the cause of Canonization for this priest who was a courageous and tireless proponent of the equality of all people.”
Following this month’s vote from the USCCB, a tribunal must investigate Quinn’s life and witnesses and documents will be examined before the results are sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome.
The final steps include beatification and canonization, where miracles must be attributed to the individual before sainthood is declared.
