Pioneer Bishops of Louisiana

This blog will discuss bishops that served in Louisiana up to 1900.  For more information about Louisiana, see my blog of January 15, 2018.

Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, claimed all of the land drained by the Mississippi River for France in 1682 and named it Louisiana in honor of King Louis XIV of France.  Pierre le Moyne, Sieur I’berville, began the colonization of the Louisiana territory by building a fort and settlement at what is now Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1699, and another settlement near the mouth of the Mississippi River, in what is now Louisiana, in 1700.  This later settlement was soon abandoned.  The first permanent settlement in Louisiana was at Natchitoches in 1714.  New Orleans was established by I’berville’s brother, Jean Baptist, in 1718.  France ceded Louisiana to Spain in 1762 and England claimed the territory east of the Mississippi the following year.  France once again gained control of the colony in 1800 before selling it to the United States in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase.  Congress established the Territory of Orleans in 1804 and Louisiana became the 18th State in 1812.

The French brought Catholicism to their colony and the first Mass in Louisiana was celebrated by Father Anastase Douay near the mouth of the Mississippi River on Shrove Tuesday, 1699.  As settlements grew, churches were established—there were seven by 1729.  The Ursuline Nuns arrived in New Orleans in 1727 to establish the first convent in what is now the United States.  They also established a school for girls, a hospital, and an orphanage.  The Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, now the Archdiocese of New Orleans, was established in 1793—the second Diocese in what is now the United States (although New Orleans was not then a part of the United States).  By 1800, Louisiana had about twenty parishes.  The name of the Diocese changed to the Diocese of Louisiana in 1823 and to the Diocese of New Orleans in 1829.

Louisiana grew quickly after it became a state—its population increasing from 77,000 in 1810 to 708,000 in 1860.  New Orleans grew as well from a population of 17,000 in 1810, to 116,000 in 1850, to 216,000 in 1880.  Until the 1850s, New Orleans was one of the five largest cities in the United States and it remained one of the ten largest until the 1880s.  This growth led Pope Pius IX to raise New Orleans to an archdiocese in 1850—one of the first six in the United States—and to create the Diocese of Natchitoches in 1853 to serve Catholics in northern Louisiana.  By 1910, there were more than half a million Louisiana Catholics—about a third of the total population.  In that year, the Diocese of Natchitoches became the Diocese of Alexandria, and in 1918, the Diocese of Lafayette was established by Pope Benedict XVI to serve Catholics in southwestern Louisiana.  The Diocese of Baton Rouge was created in 1961—Baton Rouge has been the State capital since 1880.  In 1977, Pope Paul VI created the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux and renamed the Diocese of Alexandria as the Diocese of Alexandria-Shreveport.  Pope John Paul II created the Diocese of Lake Charles in 1980 and split the Diocese of Alexandria-Shreveport into separate dioceses in 1986.

Luis Penalver y Cardenas was born to a wealthy family in Havana, Cuba, in 1749.  He was ordained a priest in 1772 and was appointed diocesan vicar general in 1773.  Pope Pius VI created the new Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas in 1793 and appointed Penalver as the first bishop.  [At this time, Louisiana and Florida were Spanish colonies.  Florida was divided into East Florida, which included most of the modern State, and West Florida, which basically consisted of the Florida panhandle, the southern most parts of Alabama and Mississippi, and part of the current State of Louisiana.  France claimed this area in 1800 before selling it to the United States in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase.]

Penalver arrived in New Orleans in 1795 and he found Catholics from more than a dozen countries, including some that were enslaved.  He had some success in improving morality and imposing Church discipline, which according to his reports were greatly needed.  He also established new parishes and demanded detailed record-keeping by all the parishes—many of which he visited to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation.  Penalver y Cardenas was appointed Archbishop of Guatemala in 1801 and he served there until 1806.  At that time he returned to Havana and died there in 1810, leaving $200,000 to help the poor.  

Francisco Bartolome Porro y Reinado was born in Gibraltar in 1739 and ordained a Franciscan priest in Europe.  Porro y Reinado was appointed to succeed Penalver y Cardenas in 1801, but never came to New Orleans because of the pending Louisiana Purchase.  He was appointed bishop of Tarazona, Spain in 1803 and served there until his death in 1814.  The Louisiana Diocese, which became part of the United States in 1803, continued without a permanent leader for several more years and was administered by Bishop (later Archbishop) John Carroll of Baltimore from 1805 to 1812.

Louis W. DuBourg was born in 1766 in what is now Cape Haitian, Haiti.  He was born into a prominent family in what was then a French colony.  His mother died when he was two and his father sent him to France to live with his maternal grandparents.  DuBourg entered a seminary and was ordained a priest in 1790.  Because of his vocation and his aristocratic family, he was targeted during the French Revolution and fled to Spain (where he learned Spanish).  He came to Baltimore in 1794 and became a Sulpician priest in 1795.  Bishop John Carroll assigned him to work with the increasing number of French and Spanish immigrants who had come to the United States to escape revolutions.  DuBourg learned English in the process.  Carroll appointed DuBourg as the third president of Georgetown College in 1795 and he made substantial contributions to the young college.  He also ran up a large debt, which displeased the Jesuit board of directors who forced his resignation in 1798. The following year DuBourg established St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore.  DuBourg met Elizabeth Ann Seton in 1806 and was influential in her vocation.  He also raised the funds necessary to purchase the land where the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption now stands in Baltimore.

Archbishop Carroll sent DuBourg to New Orleans in 1812 as Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas in 1812.  The Diocese had not had a bishop since Penalver’s departure in 1801.  DuBourg found a Diocese that covered most of the Louisiana Purchase but had few priests and little infrastructure.  Making matters worse is that the French-speaking Catholics (both clergy and laity) in New Orleans did not accept his appointment by an American bishop.  Their hostility forced him to live outside the city.  He was named Bishop of the Diocese in 1815 while he was in Europe recruiting priests and nuns for the Diocese.  While there, he also helped established an organization now known as the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.  He returned from Europe in 1817 and took up residence in St. Louis, then in the northern part of his diocese.  He was welcomed by the people of St. Louis and he accomplished many things.   He built the first cathedral west of the Mississippi River, established Native American missions, built many churches (including some in Louisiana), established a seminary and what is now St. Louis University, and invited religious orders of sisters to work in the Diocese, including the Sisters of the Sacred Heart led by Rose Philippine Duchesne, now a canonized saint.  In 1823, DuBourg decided that he should reestablish his residence in New Orleans.  (The Diocese had been renamed the Diocese of Louisiana.)  Unfortunately, the hostility had not waned and he resigned in 1826 and moved back to France.  He was soon appointed Bishop of Montauban in France and in 1833 was appointed Archbishop of Besancon.  He died the same year. 

Leo de Neckere was born in what is now Belgium in 1799.  He began his seminary training in Ghent but was recruited to come to the United States in 1817.  He completed his studies in Missouri and was ordained a Vincentian priest in 1822.  He was a missionary and seminary professor until becoming the superior of his seminary in 1826.  The 30-year-old de Neckere was appointed Bishop of New Orleans in 1829, the first to be referred to by that title.  He was well respected by the people of his Diocese—which by that time consisted of Louisiana and Mississippi.  He built New Orleans’ first English-speaking parish—St. Patrick’s—and brought in a group of French nuns to serve in the Diocese.  Never in good health, de Neckere died from yellow fever in 1833.

Antoine Blanc was born in France in 1792 and ordained to the priesthood in France in 1816.  In July 1817, he and some seminarians left France with Bishop Louis Dubourg of the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas (New Orleans).  They arrived in Maryland in September, left Baltimore in late October, walked to Pittsburgh, took a flatboat to Louisville, and arrived in Bardstown, Kentucky, in early December.  Blanc was soon assigned to Vincennes, Indiana, then part of the Diocese of Bardstown.  Dubourg recalled him to New Orleans in 1820.  Blanc served at parishes in the Diocese, including those in Natchez and Baton Rouge, until he was appointed associate vicar general of the Diocese of New Orleans by Bishop Leo Raymond De Neckere in 1831.  Blanc was appointed apostolic administrator of the Diocese in 1833 upon the death of de Neckere and was appointed Bishop in 1835. 

Blanc was named the first Archbishop of New Orleans in 1850.  During his 25-year tenure as Bishop and Archbishop, Blanc established 47 parishes, ordained almost 70 priests, built a seminary and many other schools, established two hospitals and several other charitable institutions, and started a French-language diocesan newspaper.  He invited several religious orders to serve in the Archdiocese and brought an end to problems with church trustees through legal action in 1844.  He traveled throughout his Archdiocese, which by the time of his death consisted of southern Louisiana, and he also led efforts to organize the Church in Texas.  He faced many problems as Archbishop including a Louisiana population that consisted of some who were anti-religious and anti-clerical, others who were hostile to immigrant Catholics, and many who opposed any kind of education for African-Americans.  In addition, the yellow fever epidemic of 1853 killed one in twenty residents of New Orleans.  Despite these problems, Archbishop Blanc, who died in 1860, was noted for his leadership and spirituality.

John M. Odin was born in France in 1800 and came to Louisiana in 1822.  He was ordained a Vincentian priest in 1823 and began working in Missouri and Arkansas.  Odin was appointed the Vice Prefect Apostolic of Texas in 1840, Vicar Apostolic of Texas in 1842, and first Bishop of Galveston, Texas, in 1847.  

Odin was named second Archbishop of New Orleans in 1861—just as the Civil War began.  Odin was sympathetic to the Southern cause but worked to achieve peace under the direction of Pope Pius IX.  Catholic priests, religious, and laity sought to alleviate the suffering caused by the war on the part of both soldiers and civilians.  Odin also made sure that the spiritual needs of the soldiers were met by providing chaplains.  Many of the Archdiocese’s churches and other buildings were damaged or destroyed during the War, and in 1867 the area suffered through a yellow fever epidemic.  Despite this, Odin established seven new parishes outside of New Orleans and increased the number of priests by 50 percent during the War years, mostly by recruiting priests from Europe.  Odin also started an English-language archdiocesan newspaper.  Archbishop Odin died in France in 1870 while attending the First Vatican Council.

Napoleon J. Perche was born in northwestern France in 1805 and was ordained to the priesthood there in 1829.  He served his local diocese until 1837 when he came to the United States.  He served the Diocese of Bardstown, Kentucky (now the Archdiocese of Louisville) until 1842 when he became chaplain of the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans.  Perche established and was the editor of the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ first newspaper and had been placed under house arrest during the Civil War because of his Confederate sympathies.  

Perche became Archbishop of New Orleans in 1870 and faced an immediate task of rebuilding many of the Archdiocese’s churches and schools.  He began an extensive expansion of the number of parishes and schools in the Archdiocese and brought in members of eight religious orders to assist in this effort.  Part of the building program involved schools for newly freed African American children.  Unfortunately, this building program caused the Archdiocese to amass a large debt ($600,000 or $15 million today).  The Vatican appointed Francis Leray as coadjutor archbishop in 1879 and gave him authority over the Archdioceses’ finances.  Perche also started an English language Archdiocesan newspaper—the one he established earlier was in French.  Archbishop Perche died in 1883. 

Francis X. Leray was born in northwestern France in 1825.  He came to the United States in 1844 and taught at Spring Hill College in Alabama before entering St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore.  He was ordained a priest in 1852 for the Diocese of Natchez (now the Diocese of Jackson), Mississippi.  He served in Jackson and ministered to those suffering from two yellow fever epidemics—he himself almost died from the fever.  He established the first Catholic church in Vicksburg in 1857.  Leray served as a Confederate Army chaplain during the Civil War and was captured by Union forces more than once.  He was always released once he was identified as a priest.  After the War, he returned to Vicksburg and dealt with a cholera epidemic.  He served as vicar general of the Diocese from 1871 until 1877 when he was named Bishop of Natchitoches (now Alexandria), Louisiana.  Leray served as Bishop of Natchitoches for only two years.  His major contribution was the recognition that the Catholics of his Diocese mostly spoke English, but many of the priests were French, so he demanded that all of his priests communicate publicly in English.

Leray was named Coadjutor Archbishop of New Orleans in 1879 and also served as the Apostolic Administrator of both New Orleans and Natchitoches until 1883 when he became Archbishop of New Orleans.  As Archbishop, Leray worked to pay off over half of the Archdiocesan debt and was able to open several new schools, but the stress caused him to lose his health and he died in 1887 while on a visit to France.

Francis A. Janssens was born in Holland 1843 and ordained a priest in Belgium in 1867.  His interest in serving in the American missions brought him to Richmond, Virginia, in 1868.  Two years later, he was appointed rector of the Cathedral and later became vicar general for the Diocese of Richmond.

Janssens was named Bishop of Natchez, Mississippi, in 1881 and was appointed Archbishop of New Orleans in 1888.  Archbishop Janssens established St. Joseph’s Seminary and a school for the hearing impaired.  He also built several churches and 25 schools and was able to reduce the Archdiocese’s debt.  He established St. Katharine’s parish in New Orleans in 1895 for African Americans.  Some viewed this as supportive of segregation, but Janssens thought it would build African American leadership skills, just as ethnic parishes had done for other groups.  He also advocated the ordination of African American priests long before other U.S. bishops did so.  [Only a dozen African American priests were ordained in the United States prior to 1930.]  Janssens invited several religious orders to work in the Archdiocese, especially to minister to African Americans, and proclaimed Our Lady of Prompt Succor as patroness of the Archdiocese.  He died at sea in 1897 sailing from New Orleans to New York.

Placid L. Chapelle was born in France in 1842 and attended seminary in France and Belgium before coming to the United States.  He completed his seminary training at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore and was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 1865.  During his early years as a priest, he served as pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church in Silver Spring, Maryland, St. Joseph’s in Baltimore, and St. Matthew’s in Washington, DC.  Chapelle was appointed coadjutor archbishop of Santa Fe in 1891 and became archbishop in 1894.  

Chapelle was named Archbishop of New Orleans in 1897.  Chapelle established several lay organizations in the Archdiocese, including the Holy Name Society, the Knights of Columbus, and St. Margaret’s Daughters.  A noted homilist, who spoke English, French, and Spanish, Chapelle was selected by the Vatican to also serve as Apostolic Delegate for Puerto Rico and Cuba in 1898 and Apostolic Delegate for the Philippines in 1899.  It helped that he was a friend to Presidents Arthur, Harrison, and Cleveland.  He was very successful in these positions.  During negotiations in Paris between the United States and Spain to end the Spanish-American War, he made sure that Church would not lose any of its properties in the Philippines.  He also negotiated with the new Philippine government the release of priests and religious who had been imprisoned.  He returned to New Orleans in May 1905 during a Yellow Fever epidemic.  Eager to resume his pastoral responsibilities, he began visiting parishes.  He contracted Yellow Fever and died in August 1905.

Augustus M. Martin was born in France in 1803 and was ordained a priest in France in 1825.  He served as pastor and as a college chaplain before moving to Indiana in 1839.  There he served as pastor, cathedral rector, and, from 1843 to 1846, he served as vicar general of the Diocese of Vincennes.  Either due to poor health or a deteriorating relationship with his bishop, Martin moved to Louisiana in 1846.  He served at four parishes and in 1849 was named pastor in Natchitoches.  He was named first Bishop of Natchitoches in 1853.  Martin made his parish church the new Cathedral.

Martin’s new Diocese, which covered northern Louisiana, consisted of 20,000 Catholics, served by four priests and seven churches.  He quickly began recruiting priests from France and he established a seminary to train native priests.  He also opened a school for the children of free African Americans in 1857.  He invited religious orders of priests and nuns to work in the Diocese and he attended the First Vatican Council.  Sadly, five priests died during the yellow fever epidemic of 1873.  Nevertheless, at the time of Martin’s death two years later, there were 29 priests serving 26 churches (and additional missions), plus there were 19 schools.

Anthony Durier was born in France in 1832.  While still a seminarian, he came New Orleans in 1855.  He completed his seminary training in Ohio and was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 1856.  He was ordained by the Archbishop of Cincinnati, and he remained in Ohio for a year to improve his ability to speak English.  He returned to New Orleans in 1857 and in 1859 he was named pastor of Annunciation parish in New Orleans.  He served there for 25 years before being named the third Bishop of Natchitoches in 1884, succeeding Bishop Leray.

Bishop Durier was a strong advocate for education.  He created a Diocesan school board in 1889 and encouraged all parishes to establish schools, which resulted in almost 20 new schools—six of which were for African American children.  Durier also invited religious orders to teach at these schools.  He also established seven new parishes and finished construction of the then-Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.  Bishop Durier died in 1904.