Empowered by the Word Main Menu Empowered by the Word: 125 Years of the Society of the Divine Word in North America Exhibit Introduction: A Constant yet Ever-Changing Mission Exhibit Timeline About the Exhibit

The Southern missions begin

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In the first half of 1905, the founder St. Arnold Janssen and Rev. John Peil SVD, the superior of the Techny community, discussed the viability of a mission to the southern United States to the Black apostolate. Peil suggested Father Alois Heick, a German SVD who was sent to America immediately after his ordination in 1900, should begin the mission in Merigold, MS. With a yellow fever outbreak in the area and the aggressive behavior of the white Catholics toward Heick and his goal to serve the Black apostolate, he wrote in a September 13, 1905 letter to Peil: “In your letter you call the place here ‘happy Merigold.’ I might call it the place of fever and trouble.” A few months after his arrival, with the specific reasons being lost to time, Heick found his life in danger and had to be smuggled out of town.  

On February 2nd, 1906, the Southern mission began again in Vicksburg, MS and the Society soon received funding from St. Katharine Drexel to build a church there. In the immediate years following, the SVDs received many offers to assume responsibility of Black parishes and churches in Mississippi, the first ones they accepted were St. Mary’s Church in Vicksburg, Holy Ghost Church in Jackson, St. Joseph’s Church in Meridian, and Sacred Heart Church in Greenville. They were also granted control of St. Bartholomew’s Church in Little Rock, AR. German Divine Word Revs Johann Hoenderop and Jakob Wendel were soon sent to help manage these new parishes and found schools which the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Spirit were soon sent as teachers. 

The difficult conditions in the early years were plainly stated in a letter written on July 24, 1916 to Mother Drexel by Father Heick in a donation request: “In Vicksburg, some of the Sisters are sleeping on the frontporch. In Greenville on the porch that leads to the kitchen and in Jackson three of them are taking their night’s rest in the schoolbuilding.” Priests often reported being ill with malaria, dysentery, and yellow fever. Although conditions were able to improve through donations and other fundraising, staffing the quickly growing Southern missions was a large emerging problem.


As World War I raged abroad, German SVDs serving as missionaries in Togo were evacuated and sent to the southern United States to staff its growing missions. One of the advantages of these foreign priests was that they were outsiders to American culture and arrived with a different perspective than American-born priests. Revs Franz Baltes, Carl Wolf, and Hermann Patzelt were a few of these re-assigned missionaries. Despite their arrival, staffing the continuously growing missions proved difficult. More support for the idea of educating Black men for the priesthood and brotherhood to serve their own communities instead of white priests grew amongst the SVDs.

The Society’s desire to educate Black men for the priesthood and brotherhood led to the foundation of Sacred Heart College in Greenville, MS in 1920. To learn more about the education of Black priests and brothers, click here to read about St. Augustine’s Mission House. As Black priests were ordained, they were assigned to southern parishes and some also began to be sent to serve in missions abroad.

The Society's mission in the South grew so much so that in 1940, the North American Province divided into three provinces: Northern, Eastern and Southern, to allow for easier management. Rev. Joseph Eckert, SVD, who had earlier served as pastor at Black parishes in the northern United States, became the first provincial superior of this new province. By this time, the Society had expanded its work in parishes in Mississippi, Arkansas, and into Louisiana, several of which they still serve the communities of today.

If you are interested in reading more about the history of the Southern Province, explore the links below:
"The African-American Apostolate and The Society of the Divine Word," by Rev. Joseph Simon SVD, PhD 
"Answering the Call: The Story of the Divine Word Missionaries and St. Augustine's Seminary" by Rev. James Pawlicki SVD 

 

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