Connected with beatification and canonization processes for an individual or group of people, the Church has maintained interest in the deceased’s remains of the proposed saints especially in times of persecution, to save the person’s remains from further profanation by enemies of the Church or by simple deterioration, and for purposes of amassing relics of the holy individuals for veneration. Establishing where the person is buried also gives credence to the fact that the person existed and was not a figment of someone or some group’s imagination. Lastly, and perhaps more remarkably, the Church is interested in determining whether the person is incorrupt as one indication of holiness of life as some saints have been discovered in their graves or tombs over the stretch of history. The canonization rite has a part therein whereby a relic of the new saint is presented to the Holy Father.

The Church’s venerable tradition treats the bodily remains of the faithful with reverence given that the body in life is baptized, anointed and sacralized through reception of the Holy Eucharist and following death is destined for resurrection. Any surprised discovery of the bodily remains of the faithful, for example, in various catacombs around the world and other places has hastened the Church to preserve these places or at least collect the remains of the faithful found there. The remains of the deceased faithful are never just discarded.

21 June 2016 Congregation for Causes of Saints issued the nihil obstat to Bishop Thomas Paprocki, bishop of Springfield in Illinois, for the opening of the grave of Father Augustus Tolton at St. Peter Cemetery, Quincy, Illinois 33rd & Broadway & Maine Streets. Cooperation between the two cemetery staffs of the Diocese of Springfield and the Archdiocese of Chicago plus the assistance of a forensic pathologist, medical examiner and archeologist composed the staffing for this unique task.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki was present, Msgr. Patrick Pollard and Roman Szabelski of Archdiocesan Cemeteries Office advanced many of the preparations and brought down necessary supplies and equipment, arranged for meals, hotel stays, etc. Journalists and camera people from the two diocesan papers were aboard. All the people involved couldn’t have been more cooperative and aware of the sacred task before us.
Cemeteries had done some advanced work before. The actual little mound where the huge cruciform grave marker stands was built up with earth about two-and-a-half feet higher than the actual level of the ground where Tolton was buried – this to support the great weight of the grave stone. Fr. John Patrick Kerr d. 1914’s grave was on the other side of the marker.

It has been 119 years since Father Tolton’s death (1897); we weren’t sure what there might be left in his grave following so long a time. Ground penetrating radar equipment had located the exact location of the two graves. Prep work had opened the grave to within inches of the coffin on December 9th – a cold day in the 20s degrees Fahrenheit. Ground equipment emptied the grave area to about six-and-a- half feet down and ten-eleven-feet wide.

Police were assigned on site overnight to make sure curiosity seekers were kept away.
Saturday, December 10, proved to be an overcast day, in the 20s again and quite frosty. Tents were set up over the grave and adjacent for sitting, meals and warmth. The Diocese of Springfield prepared a morning prayer that got us started at 7.30am. An air of reverential quiet descended upon everyone. Franciscan priests came over from Quincy University where Augustus attended college and Chicago and a priest representative from the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri where the Tolton’s labored as slaves at Brush Creek. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the hole in the ground where work had begun and where we soon would meet Father Tolton in person.

The weight of the earth and the work of nature’s years had obviously settled the soil pressing down on the coffin to about 6” in height. The wooden parts of the coffin, rectangular in shape, were completely deteriorated. We were getting closer to meeting Augustus through his physical remains.

The remaining soil removed in buckets allowed the archeologist, anthropologist and an autopsy-pathologist using spatulas, brushes and scrapers to arrive at the actual coffin itself. Slowly but surely, the handles on the casket were emerging one-by-one and in very good condition. It was a glass-top coffin as evidenced by many large pieces of broken glass collected that had crashed in on the bodily remains. The earth had caved in on the body of Father Tolton pressing him into the earth – no doubt we do return to the earth from which we came!

Painstaking work took over with the delicate hand scraping and brushing. Suddenly the top of Father Tolton’s skull began to appear, it was found cracked under the earth’s pressure in several places. Any cloth material that decorated the interior of the coffin and Father’s burial clothing had disintegrated completely, a crucified Jesus from inside the coffin emerged – it’s wooden backdrop deteriorated, a much larger cross apparently from atop the coffin was also found the back of which was gone, pieces of Father Tolton’s Roman collar were collected – the only part of his clothing salvaged; apparently he had a rosary in his hands, the tiny cross from the rosary was recovered.

Work involved lifting Father’s Tolton’s skeleton parts from the embrace of the earth. His femurs, rib bones, spinal vertebrae, collar bones, collapsed pelvis, portion of the arm bones and other smaller bones were all brought forward. All bones were encrusted with the earth and proved to be delicate such that the specialists decided not to wash the bones as had been originally planned.

The skeletal remains were laid out on a table that had been prepared first with an alb, white Roman chasuble and maniple, amice and cincture – the Diocese of Springfield wanted to wrap his skeleton in the new set of burial vestments.

The specialist reading the bones immediately identified that the bones belonged to a man of about five feet/eight inches height who had died in his early forties and that he was black. Father Tolton apparently had a good set of teeth. No traces of skin or flesh could be detected anywhere on the skeleton.

Bishop Paprocki and I proceeded to secure the newly vested skeleton in a white body-bag zipped up and funeral directors placed it in a new grey/silver coffin with an inscription –The Servant of God, Father Augustus Tolton, born April 1, 1854, ordained April 24, 1886 and death 9 July 1897. A document was placed on top of the remains attesting to the work done today. The entire coffin was red-ribboned and given the waxed seal of the Diocese of Springfield by Bishop Paprocki. The coffin was in turn placed in a burial vault with an inscription of Father’s name and years of birth and death. Another burial vault received the broken glass and coffin parts and both containers were reinterred in the grave and covered over with the soil, to await news of beatification.

A closing prayer closed off the sacred work finished just shortly after 11am. We sang “Holy God We Praise Thy Name,” that was sung and accompanied by a musical band when Father Tolton returned to Quincy for his first mass summer 1886, and then sung at his funeral in Chicago.

Springfield Diocesan officials will draw up a required report to send to the Congregation for Causes of Saints at the Vatican.

Bishop Joseph N Perry
Postulator 

Peter Kodwo Appiah Cardinal Turkson President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace Archbishop emeritus of Cape Coast, Ghana