Before the Civil War there was a block of stone on what later became the Belmont Abbey College property in North Carolina. It was called the “Slave Stone” because slaves being sold at auction were made to stand on that stone so that potential buyers could see them.
Years later, the Stone was turned and refashioned into a baptismal font that is now in the entryway of the Mary Help of Christians Basilica on the Belmont Abbey College campus. A plaque was placed on this font that is there to this day that connects the Waters of Baptism with the freedom to be children of God.
A slave rock transformed into a baptismal font is a powerful image that can help us to rediscover the relationship in our Catholic faith between repentance and conversion, and social change.
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