But He Sees Self as Priest, Not Trailblazer : Black Archbishop in Pioneer Role Again

ATLANTA — He has been a trailblazer among black Roman Catholic priests--the first black vicar general of his religious order, the first black secretary of the national bishops’ conference and now, as Atlanta’s archdiocesan leader, the nation’s first black archbishop and highest ranking black prelate.

But Eugene A. Marino, a 53-year-old Mississippi native who was born and reared in a poor black Catholic parish in Biloxi, still looks on himself much as he did when he was ordained as a priest more than a quarter-century ago.

“I don’t consider myself a pioneer or a revolutionary,” says Marino, a soft-spoken man with an engaging smile and down-to-Earth manner. “I’m just a priest who tries to practice the priesthood. All I originally wanted in life was to be a simple parish priest working for black people in a little parish in the South.”

Sprawling ‘Little Parish’

Oddly enough, he points out, as Atlanta’s archbishop he comes closer to fulfilling that dream than ever before, because up to now his jobs have been mainly administrative or educational.

Of course, his “little parish in the South” is a sprawling archdiocese encompassing Atlanta and 69 northern Georgia counties, the economic hub of the Sun Belt South. What is more, only 10,000 of the total 165,000 Catholics in the province are black.

Still, much like a parish priest, Marino is for the first time in his religious career in full control of a religious jurisdiction and directly accountable for its entire fortune. “My biggest challenge is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in North Georgia with conviction and to get the people who make up our Catholic family here to bear witness to their faith by living,” he said.

His weeks in office since his installation in early May have been full of tributes from both whites and blacks.

White well-wishers see him as the right man for the job irrespective of his race. They are impressed by his credentials--which include the post of auxiliary bishop of the Washington, D.C., diocese for the last 14 years--and his reputation as a “priest’s priest.”

“His race is not an issue with anyone,” said Patrick Warner, 22, of Atlanta. “He is here as our shepherd. That’s what he’s been called to do, and we accept him for that.”

To blacks, he is all that and more--he is a symbol of their decades-long quest for wider recognition of their contributions to American Catholicism and for a stronger role in church affairs.

“You could call this a real coming of age for black Catholics,” said Beverly Carroll, executive director of the Washington-based Secretariat for Black Catholics.

Blacks have long lived a shadowy existence in the Catholic church, often relegated to back pews or to segregated parishes in poor neighborhoods. Today, only 5% of black Americans are Catholic, and the 1.3 million black Catholics make up only about 2% of the total 53 million American Catholics.

The 350 black priests and 700 black nuns among the clergy form less than 1% of the total. In the church hierarchy, 12 of the nearly 400 bishops are black. Until Marino’s appointment, only one black bishop--Joseph L. Howze of Biloxi--actually headed a diocese instead of serving as an auxiliary, or assistant, bishop.

At Marino’s installation ceremony at the downtown Atlanta Civic Center, more than 10,000 people showed up to vie for the 4,580 seats. Among the 800 Catholic clergy in attendance were almost 100 bishops and three cardinals.

In his address to the crowd Marino said that his status as Atlanta’s and the nation’s first black archbishop “need not affect the quality of my ministry among you nor the nature of our relationship with each other.” That prompted prolonged applause.

Marino needs all the good will he can get as he deals with the archdiocese’s business.

The region is one of the fastest-growing Catholic jurisdictions in the nation, but it is also beset by the usual ills of rapid expansion--among them, too few churches, schools and medical facilities to serve the growing Catholic population.

Atlanta, for example, has only two Catholic high schools--both of them located on the predominantly white, affluent north side.

As in Marino’s previous diocese in Washington, urbanized areas are experiencing mounting problems with drug abuse, youth gang violence, poverty and homelessness.

To aggravate matters, for about a year, the archdiocese has, in effect, been without a leader. Marino’s predecessor, the late Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan, suffered a stroke in spring of last year and remained incapacitated until his death the following October.

“It’s hard on a diocese to go for so long without a bishop,” Marino said. “I don’t mean to suggest that the people here weren’t doing their job, but there are many things that only an archbishop can do.”

Marino also will be under critical scrutiny in his new role. Among those watching his performance, says Evelyn Boria of Marietta, are those who “will be looking for something so they can say: ‘That’s what they get for putting a black person up there.’ ”

Sends Strong Signal

Marino gave a strong indication of how he will handle the job when, shortly after his installation, he boldly waded into a long-smoldering controversy over a sexual molestation case involving a priest and four young altar boys.

The scandal broke out in April, before Marino took charge of the archdiocese. A grand jury had returned an indictment on molestation charges against the priest, Father Anton Mowat. But when archdiocesan officials learned of the allegations against Mowat, he reportedly was suspended from his pastoral duties but was quietly permitted to return to his native England, where he since has disappeared.

Families of the alleged victims and Catholics throughout the archdiocese were outraged at the officials’ actions. Similar cases of child molestation in recent years have resulted in awards of millions of dollars to victims by dioceses in Florida, Louisiana and Minnesota.

In one of his first official acts as archbishop, Marino ordered a review of how the archdiocese customarily handles sexual misconduct charges involving clergy and lay employees. He then paid a 2-hour visit to each of the families of the alleged victims.

When the review was completed last month, he called a press conference to announce the archdiocese’s tough new guidelines, which include provisions that all allegations of sexual wrongdoing against clergy and lay employees receive the archbishop’s immediate attention and that they be reported to civil authorities if criminal charges are involved.

“He’s started a healing process here that’s been sorely needed,” said Frank Beltran, an Atlanta attorney and prominent Catholic layman. “I’m fired up about this fellow. He’s exactly what Atlanta needs.”

Marino grew up as a “minority within a minority”--a black Catholic in segregated Biloxi. His father, Jesus Maria Marino, migrated to the coastal Mississippi town from Puerto Rico in the early 1900s and married Lottie Irene Bradford, whose father had helped build Biloxi’s black Catholic church, Our Mother of Sorrows.

Discipline, hard work and religious devotion were the rule in the Marino household. His father worked nights as a baker to support the family, which grew to a total of eight children. The youngsters were required to come straight home from school and do their homework and household chores. Each evening, the family knelt in the living room to recite the Rosary.

“We were poor but we were a very loving family,” Marino recalled.

A 1948 elementary school program described young Eugene as having a perfect attendance record and the highest grades in the class as well as being the most loyal altar boy.

Marino was encouraged in his religious calling by his pastor at Our Mother of Sorrows, Father Joseph Maurer. Maurer, who was white, was a parish priest in the classic mold, Marino says, involved in every aspect of parish life.

On any particular day, Marino remembers, Maurer might be seen directing the school band, stringing lights for the church bazaar, pouring cement for a parishioner’s septic tank or rescuing young blacks in trouble with local officials or police for alleged transgressions of the segregationist Jim Crow laws.

“More than any one single person, he was responsible for my becoming a priest,” Marino said of Maurer, who died earlier this year after a lingering illness.

Marino began his religious training in 1952 and was ordained 10 years later as a priest in the Josephite order, which was created in the 19th Century by white priests to serve black Americans.

Marino’s first post after his ordination was as a professor of science and religion at a Josephite seminary in Newburgh, N.Y. In 1971, he became the vicar general, or second in command, of the Josephites--the first black to hold such a position in the order.

Three years later, after he began to be noticed by the Vatican, he was consecrated as a bishop and assigned to the Washington diocese. In 1985, he was elected secretary of the national bishops’ conference--the first black ever so honored. As secretary, he is part of the five-member executive committee that handles conference business when the bishops are not in full session.

In Washington, Marino was known as an indefatigable advocate for the poor, the homeless, the unborn and the oppressed. He frequently was called upon to testify on such issues at congressional hearings.

Marino also is a guiding spirit of the growing black consciousness movement among black Catholics. As part of this movement, black Catholics reach into their African-American cultural heritage to reinvigorate their spiritual lives and to recast black Catholicism in a distinctive new mold.

Behind-the-Scenes Role

Liturgical changes in the Mass are the most striking signs of this development. Priests in colorful robes deliver sermons in the rolling cadences more commonly associated with Baptist preachers, while gospel choirs sing such songs as “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” and “I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired.”

Marino also played a key behind-the-scenes role in arranging for representatives of black Catholics to meet with Pope John Paul II last September in New Orleans during the pontiff’s visit to the United States.

Marino was part of the delegation of American clergy who visited Rome before the Pope’s visit to brief the Holy Father on conditions in the United States. When he learned that special events were being planned for Latinos and Native Americans in the Southwest, he appealed to the pontiff to add one for black Catholics.

“My concern was not so much that we have a Mass or some event for blacks, but that the absence of something like that could be interpreted as a slight to blacks and could be blown out of proportion,” he said.

The Pope’s gathering with blacks in the New Orleans Superdome turned out to be one of the high points of the papal visit and a big boost to black Catholics in their search for greater recognition and responsibility in the church. Many black Catholics see a direct link between that meeting and Marino’s appointment as an archbishop by the Pope six months later.

Bishop Curtis Guillory of the Galveston-Houston diocese in Texas, who also was involved in planning for the papal visit, says that Marino’s skill at back room negotiations within the church hierarchy is one of his strongest points.

“You won’t see him up front waving or planting the flag, but you can be sure that, behind the scenes, he has designed how it should be waved and where it should be planted,” Guillory said.

Like other appointees of the Pope, Marino is a theological conservative.

‘Truth Doesn’t Change’

“Truth doesn’t change,” Marino said. “We don’t help people by trying to do away with their sense of guilt or their sense of shame. They need us to preach that Jesus’ life and death meant something and that there is forgiveness.”

Marino dismisses speculation that, if and when America gets its first black cardinal, he would be the top choice. He is more concerned about the job at hand.

“More than anything,” he said “I would be happy if my life could be a source of inspiration to young people--if I could affect them in a positive way to make a good choice about how they spend their lives and how they serve mankind, because being an adult is being about serving.”