Profile in Faith: Eleanor Walker

In the American Catholic Church, whose members are mostly of European descent, Eleanor Walker, 65, is unusual: an African American, born and raised a Catholic.

Walker's mother converted to Catholicism in the Depression when she was a domestic worker for an Irish Catholic family. She vowed to raise her children as Catholics. Walker attended one of Mother Katharine Drexel's schools for black and American Indian children, where the nuns told her, "Just you remember, you are a child of God."

Her faith was tested in the 1960s, when she thought that the church was too slow to embrace the civil-rights movement. She stayed away for more than a decade.

Then, in 1977, she had a dream in which a voice commanded, "Go, give thanks."

She woke up, dressed her two sons, and went to church.

She joined Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church at 12th and Spring Garden Streets. When the parish was closed in 1995, she joined St. Malachy's on North 11th Street.

She is the only Catholic remaining in her family. Her two sons and the two nieces she raised switched to evangelical Protestant churches. "They told me the Catholic Church doesn't have enough energy," she said.

Walker prefers the more meditative Mass. "I think it's very important when you're worshipping," she said, "to be still and quiet and listening."

She is not disturbed that her children are uninspired by Catholicism. "There are so many roads to God. ... I'm not dogmatic about that," she said.

"I think God has a sense of humor. All you have to do is look around you, all the different species and all the different variations in the species. And I'm sure he wouldn't want us all to worship him the exact same way, you know?"

- Andrew Maykuth