The diocese released the updated list earlier this year, as noted in a February bulletin from one of Porter’s former parishes, Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Sterling, Illinois.
“Per diocesan policy, parishioners at parishes where Father Porter served, even though briefly, were notified and his name has now been added to the Diocese of Rockford's list of priests against whom an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor has been substantiated,” the bulletin stated.
Born in the mid-1910s in Greenville, Mississippi, Porter was raised there at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, an African-American parish operated by the Society of the Divine Word. He later attended Loyola University Chicago and felt a call to the priesthood, becoming the first African-American member of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (the Dehonians) in 1942. He was then known as Herman A. Martin Porter.
After obtaining a master's in English from the University of Notre Dame, Porter was ordained in Milwaukee in 1947, celebrating first Masses at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Chicago and at Sacred Heart in Mississippi. He later taught at his order’s minor seminary, Divine Heart in Donaldson, Indiana, while serving at parishes in what was then the Diocese of Fort Wayne.
Porter authored a 1952 article, “Color Line in Catholic Churches,” which circulated widely in the Catholic press. It advocated for desegregating the U.S. priesthood and religious life, which were still largely closed to African Americans.
Porter began serving in the Diocese of Rockford in 1960, becoming director of the diocese’s Catholic information and Counseling Center in 1963 and ministering to African-American families. As part of its programs, the center operated a summer camp for disadvantaged children. Porter ended his service with the center in 1970.
Incardinated into the Diocese of Rockford in 1963, Porter served in various parishes, including Sacred Heart in Sterling, St. Therese of Jesus in Aurora, St. Ann’s in Warren, St. Mary’s in Rockford. He also served as a teacher or chaplain in several local schools, including Newman Central Catholic High in Sterling and Bishop Muldoon High in Rockford, and as a chaplain at St. Joseph’s Hospital Belvidere.
A well-respected Catholic voice on race matters throughout the Civil Rights Movement, Porter served as chaplain of the local Catholic Interracial Council and was coordination of the Rockford Diocese’s Task Force on Urban Problems. He also organized inter-diocesan interracial efforts and was president of the Catholic Clergy Conference on the Interracial Apostolate.
In 1968, prior to a meeting of the CCIA in Detroit, Porter called a separate meeting of the nation’s Black priests and religious brothers. The move was in response to assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. two weeks prior, and the resulting national fallout. The gathering became the founding meeting of the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus.
By 1971, the NBCCC was among several national Black Catholic organizations calling for African-American bishops to be appointed by the Vatican. Porter was among several names floated to become the first Black archbishop of Washington, a call that went unheeded.