Philip Chivily

Advisor

Dr. Ronald Angelo Johnson

Education

B.A. in History and Classics, Hamilton College and University of Edinburgh

M.A. in Religion, Florida State University

Biography

I received my BA in History and Classics from Hamilton College and the University of Edinburgh. I received my M.A. in Religion from Florida State University. I was born and raised in northern New Jersey and enjoy Taylor Ham, egg, and cheese sandwiches, along with hiking, running, cooking, and reading. 

Research Interests

I study the religious history of Black Catholicism in the United States, with particular attention to the American South, especially the Chesapeake region of Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Delaware, in the nineteenth century. My work examines transatlantic movements, local parish life, education, and the development of Catholic theology and practice in America. Building on my master’s thesis, “The Vanishing Parish: The Birth, Life, Death, and Legacy of Charlottesville’s Rose Hill Black Catholic Redemptorist Community,” my doctoral dissertation at Baylor University, “Where the Mission Ended: Black Catholics and the Unfinished Work of the Mill Hill and Josephite Missionaries in the Post-Civil War Chesapeake,” investigates the histories of Black Catholic parishes across the Chesapeake, recovering the lived experience, institutional development, and enduring legacy of these communities.

Why I chose Baylor

I chose Baylor for its strong commitment to rigorous, flexible student research, its record of placing graduates in liberal arts colleges, religious universities, and seminaries, and its vibrant scholarly culture that fosters both independent inquiry and meaningful collaboration.

Academic Publications

Articles

Journal Articles

“Eat, and drink, and be merry”: A Clash Over the Opening of a Benedictine Brewery in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America.” American Communal Societies Quarterly Vol. 16 No. 3 (July 2022): 236-248. 

Magazine Articles

“America’s First Black Lay Catholic Organization.” America. Published July 8, 2026, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith-and-reason/2026/07/08/a-rare-look-at-black-catholic-life-before-the-civil-war/.  

Book Reviews

Pope Francis. Life: My Story Through History. Translated by Aubrey Botsford. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2024. Reading Religion. October 31, 2025. 

Endres, David J., ed. Slavery and the Catholic Church in the United States: Historical Studies. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023. Reading Religion. February 27, 2025. 

Dewulf, Jeroen. Afro-Atlantic Catholics: America’s First Black Catholics Book Review. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022. Reading Religion. June 5, 2024. 

Mickens, Leah. In The Shadow Of Ebenezer: A Black Catholic Parish in the Age of Civil Rights and Vatican II Book Review. New York, NY: NYU Press, 2023. Reading Religion. January 20, 2024. 

Selected Activities

Awards/Fellowships/Grants

• 2026 Recipient of the American Catholic Historical Society Research Travel Grant, Awarded $2,500 in support of archival research for my doctoral dissertation. 
• 2026 Recipient of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American History Research Travel Grant Recipient of the American Catholic Historical Association Presidential Travel Grant for Graduate Students, Awarded $1,750 in support of archival research for my doctoral dissertation. 
• 2026 Recipient of a Presidential Travel Grant from the American Catholic Historical Association, Awarded $1,500 to defray the expense of traveling to the the American Catholic Historical Association 106th Annual Meeting/American Historical Association 139th Annual Meeting at Chicago
• 2025 Recipient of a research grant from the English Catholic Historical Association, Awarded $500 in support of archival research for my doctoral dissertation. 
• 2024 Recipient of the Lucius Moody Bristol Graduate Fellowship, Florida State University, Awarded $10,000 in support of archival research for my master’s thesis. 
• 2023 Recipient of the Lucius Moody Bristol Graduate Fellowship, Florida State University, Awarded $10,000 in support of archival research for my master’s thesis. 
• 2022 Recipient of the Emerson Foundation Grant, Hamilton College, Awarded $4,000 in support of archival research for my undergraduate thesis. 
• 2020 Recipient of The Vrooman Prize Scholarship in Classical Studies.

Recent Presentations

2027 Will present paper, “Souls Reclaimed: Pedagogical Visions from the Forgotten Colored Catholic Congresses,” at the 2027 American Society of Church History Annual Meeting at New Orleans, January 7-10, 2027.  

2027 Will present paper, “Black Catholic Tuskegee: Education, Identity, and Integration at St. Joseph's Mission in Wilmington and Clayton, Delaware, 1889-1907,” at the American Catholic Historical Association 107th Annual Meeting/American Historical Association 140th Annual Meeting at New Orleans, January 7-10, 2027.  

2026 Will present paper, “A Black Catholic Tuskegee: Archival Memory of Vocational-Religious Education and Futurity at St. Joseph Parish Schools, Wilmington and Clayton, Delaware,” at the American Academy of Religion’s Annual Meeting 2026 at Denver, November 21-24, 2026. 

2026 Presented paper, “To Ganganelli With Love: John Carroll and Charles Plowden’s Realist Theology of Intra-Catholic Toleration Amid the Suppression of the Jesuits and American Independence,” at the American Academy of Religion’s Online June Annual Meeting 2026, June 25, 2026. 

2026 Presented paper, “History, Hagiography, and Bill Clinton’s Bedroom: The Failed Movement to Canonize Queen Isabella of Castile,” at Louisiana State University’s History Graduate Student Association's 17th Annual Conference, “Southern Perspectives,” February 28, 2026. 

2026 Presented paper, “Missions of Ink and Lore: History, Language, Westward Expansion, Acceptance, and Erasure in John Dawson Gilmary Shea’s History Of The Catholic Missions Among The Indian Tribes Of The United States, 1529–1854,” at the American Catholic Historical Association 106th Annual Meeting/American Historical Association 139th Annual Meeting at Chicago, January 10, 2026. 

2025 Presented paper, “Catechizing Communities: Charlottesvillian Parochial Schools and the Desegregation and Integration of Charlottesvillian Catholicism” at the American Academy of Religion’s Online June Annual Meeting 2025, June 26, 2025. 

2025 Presented paper, “The Vanishing Parish: The Birth, Life, Death, and Legacy of Charlottesville’s Rose Hill Black Catholic Redemptorist Community of Saint Margaret Mary” at The Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism’s 50th anniversary conference, “Catholic Modernity in the Americas: Land, Culture, Politics,” at the University of Notre Dame, April 11, 2025. 

2025 Presented paper, “Catholicizing the Virginian Shenandoah: The National Catholic Rural Life Movement and the Redemptorists’ Transformations of Elkton and Luray” at the 2025 Annual AAR-SE Meeting at Florida Memorial University, March 7, 2025. 

2025 Presented paper, “Augustinian Dualism and Historiography” at Florida State University’s Philosophy Department’s Symposium, January 24, 2025. 

2024 Presented paper, “Supramundanizare in the Colonial and Catholic Receptions Concerning the Virginian Jesuit Martyrs of the Failed 1570-71 Ajacán Mission” at the 2024 Annual AAR-SE Meeting at the College of Charleston, March 2, 2024. 

2024 Presented paper, “An Examination of Overlooked Church Records of Three Virginian Redemptorist Black Catholic Churches” at the 21^st Annual Graduate Student Symposium at the Religion Department at Florida State University, February 10, 2024. 

2023 Presented paper, “The Church Reaches Out: Archbishop Martin John Spalding and the Mill Hill Josephites’ Missions to the Black Catholics of Maryland,” at Phi Alpha Theta NY-NJ Regional Conference 2023 at Dominican University, April 29, 2023.