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Catholic
Louisiana: The Road Less Traveled
by
John Horvat
It
is not often one can pray the rosary aloud walking through
New Orleans' French Quarter. But then again, I was not
on an ordinary tour of the city.
There are two ways visitors can experience
Louisiana.
You can take the beaten path that
so often appears in the pages of major newspapers and travel
features. This way is full of the ready-made experiences
of the tourist who lives to tell his tale to others. This
is Louisiana of the Mardi Gras celebrations, plantation
houses, carefree summer festivals and historic museums.
However, there is a path less traveled
and that is a journey through Catholic Louisiana which reveals
a more authentic side of the state.
Timely Book
My trip through Louisiana coincided
with a busy one-week promotional tour for the book,
I Have Weathered Other Storms: A Response to the Sexual
Abuse Scandals and Democratic Reforms that Threaten the
Catholic Church. The May 2003 tour included book
signings and talks in New Orleans, Alexandria, Baton Rouge
and Lafayette. Given the TFP's long presence in the area,
it was a natural setting for a speaking tour about this
latest book.
The tour was opportune for another
reason. The Church in Louisiana also suffers from the same
crisis inside the Church worldwide. Catholic Louisiana faces
Protestant inroads, widespread immorality, trendy supermarket
Catholicism and empty convents. Such threats only serve
to underscore the timeliness of the TFP's book and its Church
Shall Prevail Campaign.
Between Talks
My journey through Catholic Louisiana
began between talks in New Orleans.
It
was then that I went on a different kind of tour of the
French Quarter by joining New Orleans Catholics praying
the Rosary aloud past the voodoo shops and depraved bars
that have come to stain that once noble area. Every first
Saturday of the month, the spirited pilgrims from the
“Crusade for the Conversion of Greater New Orleans”
gather at St. Patrick’s Church on Camp Street, and
pray the litany of St. Joan of Arc. Many a tourist and
native head turn as this intrepid group processes straight
through the French Quarter to St. Louis Cathedral, the
nation’s oldest.
It was then that I visited the city’s
Confederate Memorial Hall, a museum which houses a crown
of thorns woven by Blessed Pius IX himself to console the
then-imprisoned Jefferson Davis. Although an Episcopalian,
Mr. Davis wore a brown scapular which is also exhibited
in the small but impressive museum.
It is hard to walk the streets
of New Orleans without running into Catholic Louisiana.
Majestic churches and buildings predating our nation’s
birth abound. One senses not just the presence of the
Church but a whole Catholic culture that built the city
and still permeates the atmosphere.
Outside New Orleans
Venturing outside New Orleans, the
feeling is much the same. It is the little things that
impress you: The small historic churches, the connections
with the past and the French flavor of life
In the church in St. Martinsville,
I was told, are the baptismal font and Eucharistic sanctuary
lamp donated by King Louis XVI which arrived as he was being
sent to the guillotine by French revolutionaries. At Sacred
Heart Academy near Grand Coteaux, I was taken to a chapel
where St. John Berchman appeared and cured a young novice
nun. The miracle was one of the two used in St. John Berchman's
canonization process. In the Acadiana region, there are
the descendents of the thousands of cruelly persecuted Catholics
from British Canada who found a home in the bayous and swamps
in the late 18th Century.
Throughout
the area, I felt as if I were retracing the footsteps
of missionaries, nuns and Jesuits who gave their lives
so that Louisiana might have the Faith. St. Katherine
Drexel, St. Rose Phillipine Duschene, Blessed Andrew Seelos,
and so many others traveled these same roads.
Like the title of the TFP's book,
I could not help but reflect upon how the Church in Louisiana
has indeed weathered many storms. I pray that She might
yet weather more.
Talking to Catholics
Catholic Louisiana cannot be reduced
to old buildings and past memories. Perhaps the most expressive
part of a visit is talking to Catholics themselves.
During the speaking tour through southern Louisiana, I saw
that explosive mixture of Faith and culture that forms a
whole society. Despite the ravages of modernity, remnants
of a Catholic culture still survive that make for a refreshing
experience not often seen in secular America.
You can see it in that Catholic consideration
for others that goes a few steps beyond normal Southern
hospitality. So contrary to cold business-like relationships,
the Catholic Louisianans I met were effusive, affectionate
and given to conversation. They know how to enjoy the thoroughly
“Catholic” experience of eating well and guests
are treated to the delights of Cajun cooking, New Orleans'
cuisine or the ceremony of a crawfish boil.
I
was edified to find huge Catholic families that will get
together for a Cajun feast and afterwards gather all,
young and old, to recite the rosary. I was impressed with
the general overtone of the faithful attached to priest
and parish and how this frontally clashes with the proposed
democratic reforms denounced in our book.
Protest
in Baton Rouge
As the speaking tour was finishing,
I received word of a pending piece of Louisiana legislation
that suddenly added a political dimension to our Church
Shall Prevail Campaign. House
Bill 1341 is now in committee which would specifically
force priests to reveal sins heard in confession when
child abuse is involved.
Many Louisiana homeschoolers are
concerned that the bill could target parents having difficulties
with their children and who ask advice in the confessional.
There is no evidence such a measure would help the problem.
On the contrary, many point to the fact that turning priests
in the confessional into informers of the state is usually
associated with a communist or Nazi regime and not a free
country.
To look into the matter, TFP members
in Louisiana visited the Capitol building and they are presently
rallying the TFP's many friends and supporters to oppose
this measure. (To register your protest, click
here)
Asking
Prompt Succor
A
short working visit is never long enough. It is easy to
leave with hasty or even false impressions.
However, there is one place that leaves you with a true
and lasting impression. You cannot leave Catholic Louisiana
without a visit to the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans.
There you will find the miraculous statue of Our Lady
of Prompt Succor.
This impressive statue is a spiritual
highpoint of any visit to the state. Books could be written
about the miracles, graces and blessings showered upon her
devotees. I am sure many pages are yet to be written.
Under the maternal gaze of this extraordinary
French statue, you feel a certainty of being heard, an overwhelming
kindness and special solicitude. You leave not only knowing
that succor is forthcoming but that it is coming promptly!
Amid the
crisis that afflicts the Church, that is exactly what
is needed: prompt succor. May she grant it to all those
who have chosen the less traveled path of standing up
for Catholic doctrine and morality and weathering the
modern day storm.
