Rev. George Clements

George Clements was born in 1932 and raised in the Bronzeville area of Chicago.  A Franciscan nun planted the seed of priestly vocation for him at Corpus Christi Elementary School.  By 8th grade, she stopped.  She had learned the Franciscans did not accept blacks in their seminary, and didn’t know how to tell him – but the seed took root.  He became the first Black graduate of Quigley Academy Seminary in 1945 and was ordained a priest in 1957. Clements, who marched in Selma in the 1960s with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is well known for his activism.  In the wake of King’s assassination and building upon similar clergy gatherings in Chicago, Clements was a co-coordinator/co-founder of the 1968 Black Catholic Clergy Caucus. He went on to serve as president and executive director of NBCCC.  In 1969, despite much opposition by his Archbishop, Clements became pastor of Holy Angels Church in Chicago by will of the people. Expected to fail, Holy Angels instead became a shining success story: the largest Black Catholic school in the nation with over 1,300 students; and Clements pastored it until he retired in 1991.

His other notable achievements are too numerous to mention, but they include: originating the one church – one child program concept in 1980; receiving approval from the Vatican in 1981 to adopt the first of his four children, the first Catholic priest in the Chicago area to do so; starting the one church – one addict program in 1994; initiating the one church – one inmate program in 1999; celebrating his 60th year of ordination in May 2017; and this year — as an octogenarian – marching in an anti-violence march in a crime-plagued area of Chicago.