Bishop Boxie shares faith journey from practicing law to becoming youngest U.S. bishop
From practicing law to answering a call to the priesthood, Bishop Robert Boxie’s faith journey has led to multiple milestones, including becoming the youngest U.S. bishop and the first African American to be appointed to the leadership role in nearly a decade.
With an Ivy League law degree, a successful career, and the ability to travel, Robert Boxie III seemed to have it all. Yet, he said he felt the Lord calling him to something even greater: religious life.
Originally from southern Louisiana, Boxie grew up where “Catholicism runs deep in the soil,” he said in an Aug. 21 interview with “EWTN News In Depth” host Catherine Hadro.
With that faith instilled in him, Boxie went on to attend Vanderbilt University, where he received a degree in chemical engineering and a second degree in music. He then worked for a year in France teaching English.
Upon returning to the U.S., he continued his education at Harvard Law School before working as a law clerk in Maryland and then as an associate at a law firm in Washington, D.C.
Then, following much discernment, he entered seminary for the Archdiocese of Washington and was ordained a priest in 2016.
After a decade as a priest, Pope Leo XIV appointed Boxie an auxiliary bishop of Washington. Cardinal Robert McElroy ordained him into the order of bishops at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on July 8.
“Itʼs still new. Itʼs still fresh,” he said. “The ordination … was tremendous. It was a real gift to me, and my family, and my community.”
“Itʼs a new reality that Iʼve never experienced before, but itʼs one where I know that the Lord has prepared me for this moment,” he said. “There have been a number of graces before the ordination, at the ordination itself, and since then. Lordʼs just been incredibly generous with me.”
From lawyer to priest
Before attending law school, “my faith was just something very personal and very private,” Boxie said. “But it was really in law school where my faith became more public, and I was able to share it with others.”
Boxie joined the Catholic Law Student association and attended his first vocation retreat for the Archdiocese of Boston, where he really began to consider the priesthood.
“I eventually went on another vocation retreat for the Archdiocese of Washington to see if the first one was a fluke, or if that was just a happenstance,” he said.
While discerning, “I had a great clerkship. I was at a great law firm. I was doing some good work, making some good money, living in a great part of town, really living the D.C. life, if you will. And it was fun.”
“I felt as though Iʼd worked so hard to achieve this and wanted to see that to its natural end,” he said. But, “the Lord called, and he placed this desire that kept growing, and growing, and growing that I couldnʼt simply ignore, or couldnʼt simply disregard.”
A few years after his priestly ordination, Boxie began serving as chaplain at Howard University in Washington, D.C., which is “one of the premier historically Black colleges and universities in the United States.”
“For the six years that I spent at Howard, I had the best job as a priest in the United States, hands down. And I would put that to any other priest in the United States,” he said.
He also served as a priest in residence at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church.
Ministry to youth and African American communities
At 45, Boxie said he has “no problem being John the Beloved [who is believed to be the youngest of the Twelve Apostles] of the bishops’ conference.”
Boxie feels “a responsibility” to Catholic youth who have “an incredible amount to offer — their creativity, their ideas, their perspective, their zeal and enthusiasm,” he said.
Boxie’s appointment marked another milestone. It was the first time since 2017 an African American has been selected as a U.S. bishop.
“Itʼs huge, and itʼs much bigger than me,” Boxie said. “There has been a fraught history within the Catholic Church when it comes to Black people.”
“There was a significant period in the Church where African Americans were relegated as second-class citizens in the Church and in the house of God — having to sit in the back of the church or in the choir rafters, receiving sacraments last, being denied even entry into the church.”
The “Church has done an incredible amount of good as well in the Black community, especially when it comes to education and schooling,” he said. “But there is still some healing that has to take place.”
Following his appointment, Boxie said he believes “people feel hope” and “that the Church hasnʼt forgotten them.”
“Black Catholic faith, Black spirituality in general, is one where you can find joy and suffering. And thereʼs so much suffering thatʼs going on around, and our experience is one where we can still find the joy in that. We can still find Godʼs plan and Godʼs providence in that,” he said.
‘Kindredness with the pope’
The bishop said he believes his appointment is a way to better minister and evangelize to the U.S. Black Catholic community. There are about 3 million Black Catholics in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center.
Pope Leo “has African ancestry in his blood,” including family in “the Creole community in New Orleans,” Boxie said. “Iʼm also part of that Creole community in southwest Louisiana, and so I feel a kindredness with the pope.”
“Heʼs recently spoke about his own African history and how heʼs had both those who were enslaved and those who enslaved other human beings. And so heʼs aware of that. Heʼs sensitive to that,” Boxie said.
“Even his recent statement in Magnifica Humanitas, his first encyclical, apologizing for the sin of slavery and the horrors that ensued from that,” he said. “Iʼm so grateful for that.”
“Itʼs going to open up so many more avenues and doors for folks who have been disillusioned by the Church to take another look,” Boxie said.
“Leo is different,” he said. “I think heʼs very much continuing the tradition of past popes” while also “putting his own stamp, his own mark on it.”
In continuity with Pope Francis, Pope Leo “wants to select bishops and shepherds that are close to the people, that really have a sense of where people are, the smell of the sheep, and who are on the ground, in the trenches with folk.”
Mission as bishop
“I will be assisting Archbishop Cardinal McElroy, but as an auxiliary that gives me more flexibility to be out with the people,” Boxie said.
For those in D.C. “who are … working on the Hill, or in law firms, or lobbying groups — Iʼve been there and Iʼve had that experience as well,” he said.
“I feel as though I can have a special connection with the young people, young adults, that are here in the city, who are trying to navigate this space and this world, and figure out where the Lord is really calling them,” he said.
“I look forward to just connecting with so many people,” he said. “Because there are a number of folks who are seeking and who are searching.”
“And I was there too. Seeking and searching: ‘Where is the Lord in this? How is he calling me to glorify him with my life, with the gifts that he has given to me?’”
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