Raymond Caesar
{{Short description|American Roman Catholic bishop in Papua New Guinea}}
{{Infobox Christian leader
| type =
| other_post = President of Bishops’ Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands (1983 – 1984)
| coat_of_arms =
| signature =
| alma_mater =
| nationality = American
| buried =
| death_place = Goroka, Papua New Guinea
| death_date = {{death date and age|1987|06|08|1932|02|14}}
| birth_place = Eunice, Louisiana
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1932|02|14}}
| birth_name =
| consecrated_by = John Edward Cohill, Adolph Alexander Noser, and Herman To Paivu
| consecration = October 25, 1978
| ordained_by =
| ordination = June 4th, 1961
| previous_post =
| honorific-prefix = His Excellency, The Most Reverend
| successor = Michael Marai
| predecessor = John Edward Cohill
| ended = June 18, 1987
| enthroned =
| appointed = August 30, 1980
| diocese =
| archdiocese =
| caption =
| alt =
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| image =
| title = Bishop of Goroka
| honorific-suffix = SVD
| name = Raymond Caesar
| motto =
}}Raymond Rodly Caesar, SVD (14 February 1932 – 18 June 1987) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church who served as Bishop of Goroka in Papua New Guinea from 1980 until his death in 1987.{{Cite book|last=Durchholz|first=Patricia|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/41347084|title=Defining mission: Comboni Missionaries in North America|date=1999|publisher=University Press of America|isbn=0-7618-1427-2|location=Lanham, Md.|oclc=41347084}}{{Cite web|title=Bishop Raymond Rodly Caesar [Catholic-Hierarchy]|url=http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bcaesar.html|access-date=2021-05-26|website=www.catholic-hierarchy.org}} He was the first African American to serve as a Catholic bishop outside of the United States.
Biography
Born in Eunice, Louisiana, to Celina Comeaux and Prosper Caesar,{{Cite web|title=Record details of Raymond Rodly Caesar|url=https://www.familyhistory.bdm.qld.gov.au/details/b791cc2d5b90b8d58d6125fafb9ef369d9fa9decefacb00136b80ff8133a4343|access-date=2021-05-26|website=www.familyhistory.bdm.qld.gov.au|language=en-AU}} Caesar was ordained to the priesthood for the Society of the Divine Word in 1961, during a period when African-American priests were still few and far-between.
He had graduated from St. Augustine Seminary in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, the only seminary in the United States created to educate African Americans specifically. The White Supremacist climate of the United States at the time dictated, for most Catholic ordinaries, that Black priests could not enter their seminaries or serve in their dioceses—which meant that the first prospective Black priests from the US were sent to study abroad. Most of these priests were also sent to serve abroad after ordination.
Caesar was one such priest, who after his ordination in 1961 would go on to become a Monsignor as well as a bishop outside of the US (in Papua New Guinea), as the SVD order served diocese across the globe. Caesar was the first African-American Catholic bishop abroad.
He was appointed as coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Goroka in 1978, and would become the ordinary only two years later, making him the second-ever African-American ordinary anywhere in the world (after Joseph Lawson Howze in 1977). He served as president of the local bishops' conference from 1983-1984.{{Cite web|title=The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Papua New Guinea and Soloman Islands|url=http://www.gcatholic.org/dioceses/conference/082.htm|access-date=2021-05-26|website=GCatholic}}
He died in 1987 while still in office.
Personal life
Caesar's cousin, Fr Roger Caesar, SSJ, was a Josephite priest in the United States.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caesar, Raymond}}
Category:African-American Roman Catholic bishops
Category:Roman Catholic bishops of Goroka
Category:Catholics from Louisiana
Category:People from Eunice, Louisiana
Category:Divine Word Missionaries Order
Category:20th-century American Roman Catholic bishops
Category:20th-century African-American people
Category:St. Augustine Seminary (Bay St. Louis)
Category:African-American members of Catholic religious communities