“His life and ministry still speak to the problems of our day where communities, neighborhoods and churches continue to evidence separations among race and class and the disturbances that erupt periodically from these social contradictions,” Bishop Perry said in a statement. “Father Tolton is a model for priests and laity who live and work in these situations while they strive to work for harmony and peace among all regardless their color, their origin, their language.”

There are two more steps on the road to sainthood. If church investigators attribute a miracle to Father Tolton, he will be beatified and declared “blessed” by the pope. A second miracle would lead to his canonization, which would make him a saint.

Church officials are studying “at least one potential miracle” that may have been the result of Father Tolton’s “prayerful intercession,” the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois said Wednesday. The diocese said it and the Archdiocese of Chicago had spent 16 years advocating his sainthood.

Father Tolton was born in Brush Creek, Mo., on a plantation owned by a white Catholic who had his slaves baptized and given religious instruction, according to a biography published online by the Diocese of Springfield.

He was named Augustine after the Christian theologian from Roman North Africa, he said later in life. As a child, Father Tolton fled across the Mississippi River one night in a row boat with his mother and two siblings as Confederate soldiers shot at them from the shore.