Pierre Toussaint Medallion Awardee: Rev. Gregory C. Chisholm, SJ, 2021
Slide presentation honoring Pierre Toussaint Medallion Awardee Rev. Gregory C. Chisholm, SJ at the annual Pierre Toussaint Scholarship Fund Awards Dinner hosted by the Archdiocese of New York. Guastavino's Event Space, New York, New York, 1 November 2021.
In 2021, the Archdiocese of New York presented the Pierre Toussaint Medallion to Reverend Gregory C. Chisholm, SJ '73, SM '75, PhD '89 and Helen T. Lowe, as well as posthumously to Reverend Dr. Thomas G. Schaefer.
Rev. Chisholm earned all of his degrees in Mechanical Engineering, bachelors to doctorate, from MIT. After taking temporary leave from his doctoral studies in 1980, he entered the Society of Jesus (The Jesuits) and received the licentiate in sacred theology from Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, MA. In 1993, he was ordained to the priesthood. He has served as pastor at St. Patrick Church in Oakland, CA. He has also taught at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, CA and at the Jesuit Hekima College in Nairobi, Kenya. Rev. Chisholm served the Archdiocese of New York by the Society of Jesus before becoming the 13th pastor at the Roman Catholic Church St. Charles Borromeo/Resurrection Chapel in his native Harlem.
[The award commemorates the life and work of the] Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766-1853) [who] was born a slave in Haiti and died a freeman in New York City. He is credited by [the Archdiocese of New York] with being the father of Catholic Charities in New York. Pierre was instrumental in raising funds for the first Catholic orphanage and began the city’s first school for black children.