Moses B. Anderson, Detroit's First Black Bishop, Has Died

Retired Auxiliary Bishop Moses B. Anderson, SSE, the first black bishop for the Archdiocese of Detroit, died of cardiac arrest on New Year’s Day at his home in Livonia. He was 84.

Bishop Anderson served the Archdiocese of Detroit from 1983, when he was ordained a bishop by Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka, until his retirement in 2003. He was known especially for his humble service in international and interracial ministry.

Moses Anderson was born in Selma, Ala., on Sept. 9, 1928, into the Baptist faith before his conversion to Catholicism in 1949. He was ordained a priest nine years later into the Vermont-based Society of St. Edmund before later being appointed auxiliary bishop of Detroit by Pope John Paul II.