‘Reflecting God’s mercy’: Sculptor completes his tribute to an American hero
Forrest Tucker, a member of Mary, Queen of Peace Parish in Danville, unveiled his sculptures of Father Augustus Tolton, the first recognized priest of African descent in the United States, during an event at Marian University in Indianapolis on July 16. (Photo by Ann Margaret Lewis)
By John Shaughnessy
The evening was both an ending and a beginning for Forrest Tucker in his unlikely journey of humbly trying to shine a more brilliant spotlight on the life of an American hero of tremendous faith.
For the past 2 1/2 years, Tucker has devoted his life to creating two bronze sculptures of Father Augustus Tolton, the first recognized priest of African descent in the United States who was born into slavery and overcame the racism of his country and his Church to become a boundless source of hope, humanity and Christ’s love in the slums of Chicago in the late 19th century. (Related story: In documentary, Venerable Father Augustus Tolton’s words reveal struggles)
Having finished the sculptures, Tucker shared them for the first time in public on the evening of July 16. It was during an event at Marian University in Indianapolis honoring Father Tolton, whose sainthood cause progressed in 2019 when Pope Francis declared him “venerable”—a sign that the Church recognizes that he lived a life of heroic virtue.
Tucker knows the next step in Father Tolton’s path to sainthood would be for him to be declared “blessed,” which usually happens when the Church believes an intercession has led to a miraculous healing. A second such intercession would lead to Father Tolton being declared a saint.
“I was super happy the sculptures could be seen,” says Tucker, a member of Mary, Queen of Peace Parish in Danville who is retired from his lengthy career as a welder at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “It’s been such a long journey—2 1/2 years. It took me four months to take them from clay to bronze. That was a full-time endeavor, all week, every day.”
While the artistic process has ended, his desire to share the sculptures is just beginning.
“A lot of people in the inner-city know Father Tolton, but you get out in the suburbs and people don’t know who he is,” says the 65-year-old Tucker. “That’s where I see a need. I want people to be introduced to him so they can look further into his story. If a church or a parish or school would like it, I could put the sculptures on loan for a few weeks.
“The whole point of sacred art is to bring an image or a story to the minds of people. If a person is drawn to Father Tolton, they can get their phone out, do a Google search and look into his story. And maybe that takes them deeper. I think that’s what beautiful sacred art does—it takes people from the beautiful to the truth.”
The truth and the story of Father Tolton is both painful and uplifting.
Keeping the faith and the love of God
Tucker was shocked and dismayed to learn that when Father Tolton was born into slavery in 1854, it was also on a plantation owned by Catholics.
“They educated their slaves and catechized their slaves,” Tucker says. “They went to Mass. Father Tolton learned how to read Scripture. His mother was a very faithful and devout Catholic, and she had an influence on him to not lose his faith, his love of God.”
Tucker is also touched by the bravery of Father Tolton’s mother, the bravery she showed in gaining freedom for herself and her three children. Escaping from the slave owners during the Civil War, she led her children across the Mississippi River and into Quincy, Ill., with the help of Union soldiers in 1862.
“The first place they went was to a Catholic church,” Tucker marvels. “And the church helped them.”
Embracing the faith that his mother loved, he sought to serve God and the Catholic Church as a priest. Yet no seminary in the United States at the time would accept a Black man. Still, through the influence of priests in Quincy, a seminary in Rome invited him to pursue priestly formation, leading Father Tolton to be ordained on April 24, 1886.
Assigned to return to Quincy, the then-31-year-old Father Tolton ministered to both Blacks and whites, seeking to draw them closer to God and each other, even in the face of continued racism. Later transferring to Chicago, he served in the city’s slums, caring for the spiritual and physical needs of the poor and the sick until his death due to heat stroke in 1897 at the age of 43.
Tucker didn’t know Father Tolton’s story at the time he experienced a personal moment of doubt and fear in 2021.
‘Reflecting God’s Mercy’
At the time, Tucker’s friend, Cheryl Shockley, had organized a blood drive in honor of her youngest child, Jack Shockley, who had been murdered in 2020, at the age of 24, outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Indianapolis.
There were a few reasons why Tucker was reluctant to go to the blood drive. His wife of now 47 years, Dawn, has struggled with multiple sclerosis for most of their married life, and Tucker doesn’t like to leave her on weekends when he doesn’t have caregiver help. And the blood drive was in the gym at Christ the King Parish on the north side of Indianapolis, a long drive from Danville.
Still, the pull of friendship with Cheryl and her husband Steve made him go.
“Cheryl was greeting people as they came in,” Tucker recalls. “She had a table full of prayer cards and pictures of saints. And one of the prayer cards was Father Tolton. She asked me if I’d ever heard of Father Tolton. I said no. She said, ‘Forrest, I think we need to pray to Father Tolton. We need prayers for this country, for the healing—because there’s so much violence being done.’ ”
Tucker took a prayer card and prayed to Father Tolton, which led him to have “the strongest image” of the priest reaching out to a grieving woman. Tucker has captured that powerful scene in one of the sculptures, a piece he calls, “Reflecting God’s Mercy.”
“Her expression is at the exact moment when she turns to God,” Tucker notes about the grieving woman. “She doesn’t have any strength in her body but to lift her hand. Tolton’s hand, his palm is up. She has to put her hand in his. She turns and looks at God through the eyes of Tolton.”
‘The Holy Spirit chooses people for a reason’
Tucker believes the Holy Spirit has guided him in the creation of the sculptures. At the same time, he smiles and shakes his head in wonder that the Holy Spirit chose him—a white person who lives in a rural area—to create them.
“I have to say if I had to pick someone to do that, I wouldn’t pick me,” Tucker says. “I’ve had other instances in life where if I had to choose somebody as the right person to do the job, I would look over myself and try to find somebody else. One of them is caring for my wife. Her disability was something that was handed to her and me.
“We were married when we were 18. As an 18-year-old, I didn’t see myself being a caregiver for somebody. But the Holy Spirit saw it differently. And looking through biblical history, there’s a lot of instances where people are chosen who wouldn’t be the obvious choice. When you read the stories of the 12 Apostles and a lot of the saints, they just weren’t the people you’d think would be the likely candidates. But they are. The Holy Spirit chooses people for a reason.”
It’s one more way Tucker feels a kindred spirit to Father Tolton.
“In suffering and trial, I’ve come to know those things can strengthen your faith. If I tell somebody that my wife and I both feel we are blessed—and they look at her disability or our struggle in life—they kind of look at you strange. They can’t understand why you say you are blessed when you’ve been given these extremely difficult life challenges.
“Once you understand your dependence on God, it draws you close to him. It makes your life easier to know that Christ is with you. You can endure like the saints and Father Tolton. They just knew that Christ was with them.”
(For more information about Forrest Tucker’s sculptures of Father Tolton, visit the website, www.tuckersculptures.com.) †
