St. Jerome to celebrate 50th with multicultural Mass

  
     When Father Jimmy Jeanfreau was appointed the new pastor of St. Jerome Parish in Kenner in 2006, he walked into a meeting of the parish altar society and didn’t know exactly where to sit.
    At one table were English-speaking parishioners, and at the other table were Hispanic parishioners.      “I was standing in the middle and wondering, ‘Which table do I sit down at?’” Father Jeanfreau said.
    Since then, Father Jeanfreau has worked closely with a unity and hospitality committee to bridge cultures in a parish that is about 60 percent Hispanic and 40 percent English-speaking. The fruits of those efforts toward unity and consensus will be on display Sept. 29 as St. Jerome
celebrates its 50th anniversary with a multicultural Mass of Thanksgiving at 11 a.m., celebrated by Archbishop Gregory Aymond.

Drawing people together
    “When I came here, I said I would not be the pastor of two separate communities in the same place,” said Father Jeanfreau, who spent several years as a missionary priest in Bolivia and is fluent in Spanish.
    There were struggles at first because, as Father Jeanfreau said, “there was no blueprint for this.” He began by giving two separate homilies – one in English and one in Spanish – at every Mass, but “I bored everybody out of their skulls.”
    “Finding the right mix of English and Spanish was the key, and actually, I’m trying to work in some Vietnamese once in awhile,” he said. “I’ve more or less taken the view that it’s not so much that you get half and half by splitting it up. The liturgy shows a respect for the diversity of cultures in our parish. My hope is that one day we will have a multicultural Mass every weekend.”
    Clarisa Merle, a native of Puerto Rico who has been a parishioner for 32 years and parish secretary for 15 years, said she sees an improvement in the way English- and Spanish-speaking parishioners relate to each other. She sings in the choir, which has been using more Spanish hymns and translations during Mass.
    “Now it’s really good at all four Masses,” Merle said. “The unity seems much better than it used to be. Things were done separately before – until Father Jeanfreau came here.”
    St. Jerome was established on Sept. 15, 1963, with Father Edmond Lawton as its first pastor. Without a church, St. Jerome briefly shared worship space at St. Lawrence the Martyr Church before moving to a second-floor banquet hall at Messina’s restaurant on Williams Boulevard.
    The first Mass at St. Jerome Church was celebrated on Palm Sunday, April 11, 1965, and the parish school opened in September, staffed by the School Sisters of Notre Dame. The school, however, closed at the end of the 1970-71 school year.
    In 1977, Nativity of Our Lord Parish was carved out of the St. Jerome territory, and in 1981, a second parish, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, was established in the northwest section of St. Jerome.
Father Pedro was dynamic
    Father Pedro Nunez became pastor in 1987, and his gifts attracted a large number of Hispanic Catholics to St. Jerome, which became the home to large Hispanic liturgies in the archdiocese.
    Father Ken Ryan served as pastor from 1991 until his unexpected death the day after Christmas in 1994. The parish still uses the chalice that was purchased as a gift to Father Ryan on the occasion of his 25th anniversary of ordination.
    In 1998, the parish combined religious education classes for English- and Spanish-speaking children instead of conducting them separately.
    Although St. Jerome Church was spared from any damage in Hurricane Katrina, more than half the homes in the parish sustained damage, and many families did not return. The Redwood apartments, home to 500 families, were damaged beyond repair and never reopened.
    When Father Jeanfreau was appointed pastor in 2006 by Archbishop Alfred Hughes, he remembers being asked by weary parishioners if he was just going to be staying for a brief time. He answered those questions with his hands and his heart.
    Father Jeanfreau put his carpentry skills to great use, working with parishioners to repaint the church, exchanging carpet for tile and wood floors, and refinishing the pews. He also created a side chapel dedicated to Mary by taking out a wall between the church and the parish hall, doing the carpentry work himself.
Diversity is a gift
    Deacon Luis Campuzano, who was ordained in 1996, said one reason for the previous cultural divide at St. Jerome was that the pastor, normally an English speaker, celebrated Masses for the English community, while a Spanish-speaking priest celebrated Masses in Spanish, with little crossover.
    “The gift we have is to be one family,” Deacon Campuzano said. “It’s the willingness of a specific group from each side to come together and be in communion.”
    The work toward unity has paid off. A recent parish 50th anniversary party was attended by more than 200 people, and Father Jeanfreau noticed something far different from his initial meeting at St. Jerome.
    “That was the best-attended event of anything we’ve done in a long time,” Father Jeanfreau said. “It used to be that people went straight to the Spanish tables or straight to the English tables. For the first time, I noticed people just sat down wherever they were. It wasn’t a Spanish table or an English table.”
    Many countries are represented among the Spanish-speaking parishioners: Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Cuba.
    “I really believe we have the potential to be a multicultural church,” Father Jeanfreau said. “To be Catholic means to embrace all cultures. I think we have a unique opportunity to be a shining light. My biggest thing is that we respect one another.”
    Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected].