Clarence Rufus Joseph Rivers Jr. (September 9, 1931 – November 21, 2004) was an American Black Catholic priest and well-known

liturgist Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembra ...

. His work combined

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

worship with Black Gospel music, making him an integral part of the

Black Catholic Movement The Black Catholic Movement (or Black Catholic Revolution) was a movement of African-American Catholics in the United States that developed and shaped modern Black Catholicism. From roughly 1968 to the mid-1990s, Black Catholicism would transfor ...

. He also wrote several books on music and spirituality.

Biography

Early life and education

Clarence Rufus Rivers Jr. was born in

Selma, Alabama Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, in the Black Belt region of south central Alabama and extending to the west. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 17,971 as of the 2020 census. Abou ...

, to Clarence Rufus Rivers Sr. and Lorraine (Echols) Rivers, with his family moving to

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

when he was young. He became Catholic as a young child in Catholic grade school, eventually taking "Joseph" as his confirmation name. It was in Cincinnati that he began study for priesthood, becoming the first black man to be ordained for the

archdiocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated ...

. He did graduate work at Xavier and

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

universities, as well as the

Catholic University of America The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private Catholic research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is one of two pontifical universities of the Catholic Church in the United States – the only one that is not primarily a ...

and the

Catholic University of Paris The Institut catholique de Paris (, abbr. ICP), known in English as the Catholic University of Paris (and in Latin as ''Universitas catholica Parisiensis''), is a private university located in Paris, France. History: 1875–present The Institut ...

. He eventually earned a PhD in African-American culture and Catholic

liturgy Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembra ...

from the

Union Institute Union Institute & University (UI&U) was a private online university that was headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. It also operated satellite campuses in Florida and California. In early 2023, it began to experience severe financial challenges. ...

in 1978.

Priesthood and artistic career

Rivers was ordained to the priesthood in 1956 by Archbishop Karl J. Alter. He was the first African American ordained in the

Archdiocese of Cincinnati The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Cincinnati () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church that covers all of the dioceses in the State of Ohio. As of 2025, the archbishop of Cincinnati is Robert Casey. T ...

. Early after his ordination, he worked at St. Joseph Church, a historically black parish in Cincinnati's West End neighborhood. He was also an English teacher at Purcell High School in the East Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati. He began to gain notoriety for his music during the Civil Rights Movement, beginning with his "An American Mass Program", which combined

Gregorian Chant Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainsong, plainchant, a form of monophony, monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek language, Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed main ...

with the melodic patterns and rhythms of

Negro Spirituals Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with African Americans, which merged varied African cultural influences with the exp ...

. (He was influenced in this tradition by Sister Mary Elaine Gentemann, who had composed such a Mass in 1945.) Rivers' most beloved hymn was "God Is Love", which he first performed at the first official

Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

in English in the United States after the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for session ...

(which had opened the door in

canon law Canon law (from , , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical jurisdiction, ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its membe ...

for

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

Mass rather than

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

). The song was used as the Communion Hymn during the Mass, which was held during the 1964 National Liturgical Conference in

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

. It received a 10-minute

standing ovation A standing ovation is a form of applause where members of a seated audience stand up while applauding, often after extraordinary performances of particularly high acclaim. Standing ovations are considered to be a special honor. Often they are ...

. In 1965, Rivers formed a corporation named “Stimuli Incorporated” so that he could “share his gift of Blackness” with other Catholics. Cincinnati based designer David Camele was his primary partner in virtually every visual representation of Rivers' work. Camele designed very musical octavo, every book and journal, and original vestments, including Rivers' "Black Spirit Dove" that later became the basis for a set of episcopal pectoral crosses created for all the African American bishops in the 70s and 80s. Rivers collaborated with many musicians to arrange his music like Edward Stanton Cottle, William Foster McDaniel, Henry Papale, Frank Porto, and Rawn Harbor. Harbor became a longtime collaborator and friend following in Rivers' footsteps as a full time pastoral liturgist. Rivers was responsible for backing young Grayson Warren Brown's musical career, by producing his first album under Stimuli, Inc. Much of Rivers' life's work culminated acting as chief liturgist for the Black Heritage Mass at the 1976 International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia, PA. Ibid. "Freeing the Spirit." Cardinal Maurice Otunga, Archbishop of Nairobi, Kenya presided and then Auxiliary Bishop Eugene A. Marino of Washington, DC preaching a ghostwritten homily written by Father Rivers. He became the founding director of the National Office for Black Catholics' Office of Culture and Worship during the

, and there organized various conferences and workshops in addition to spearheading the NOBC's cultural journal, "Freeing the Spirit" (a motif Rivers would re-use in various other contexts, including as the title of a short memoir). During this time, he added to his team one Robert Ray, penman of the "Gospel Mass" choral setting sung by choirs worldwide ever since. Rivers received the North American Academy of Liturgy's prestigious Berakah Award in 2002, an association of which he had been a founding member.

Death

He died unexpectedly at the age of 73 on Sunday, November 21, 2004, the

Solemnity of Christ the King The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, commonly referred to as the Feast of Christ the King, Christ the King Sunday or Reign of Christ Sunday, is a feast in the liturgical year which emphasises the true kingship of Christ ...

Legacy

Rivers was passionate about the drama of public worship, as well as the music that was the "soul" of worship. He was equally devoted to

African American culture African-American culture, also known as Black American culture or Black culture in American English, refers to the cultural expressions of African Americans, either as part of or distinct from mainstream American culture. African-American/Bl ...

and was known for his lavish

vestment Vestments are Liturgy, liturgical garments and articles associated primarily with the Christianity, Christian religion, especially by Eastern Christianity, Eastern Churches, Catholic Church, Catholics (of all rites), Lutherans, and Anglicans. ...

s and distinctive jewelry. In addition to being a gifted composer, he had an acclaimed vocal style. But it was his personal faith and belief in the

as a place where one encountered

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

that motivated all of his work.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rivers, Clarence Rufus J 2004 deaths Musicians from Selma, Alabama American male composers Catholic University of America alumni African-American Catholics African-American Roman Catholic priests Xavier University alumni Yale University alumni 1931 births 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century American Roman Catholic priests 20th-century African-American musicians 21st-century African-American people