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By Beth Donze, Clarion Herald
New Orleans is steeped in saints, but local Catholics might be hard-pressed to name more than a handful of them.
Seven individuals with New Orleans connections – six women and one man – are either recognized saints or on the road to sainthood: St. Frances Xavier Cabrini; St. Katharine Drexel; St. Rose Philippine Duchesne; Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos; Venerable Cornelia Connelly; Venerable Henriette Delille; and Margaret Haughery.
Can walk in saints’ footsteps
“There’s so much Catholic history in the French Quarter alone,” noted Dr. Emilie Leumas, archivist for the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
“As you walk, you are able to see the building at 824 Dumaine St. (later St. Louis Cathedral School), which was the original Sacred Heart School founded by St. Rose (Duchesne). Walk to the Bourbon Orleans Hotel, and you’ll see its connection to Henriette Delille and how the site was once used as the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Family.”
Uptown sites connected with Blessed Seelos and Haughery, the latter who dedicated her life to New Orleans’ orphans, are a short bus or streetcar ride away, Leumas added.
Here is a peek at the “Saintsational Seven”:
“When you drive down Esplanade, you don’t realize that the part of Cabrini (High School) that faces Esplanade was the orphanage,” said Leumas, noting that the building’s façade is partly hidden behind oak trees.
When Cornelia discerned a calling to become a religious sister and Pierce was ordained a Catholic priest, the couple legally separated and enrolled their three children in boarding school. Pierce ultimately left the priesthood, but when his former wife refused to cast a
side her vows, he sued Cornelia in an English court for custody of their children.
The archdiocesan archives contain a letter from Cornelia urging her spiritual advisor, Archbishop Blanc, to pray for her oldest son, whom she never saw again.
Residential trio
Three members of this saintly group resided and ministered in New Orleans in more than a visitor’s capacity: Venerable Henriette Delille, Margaret Haughery and Blessed Francis Seelos.
Mother Henriette and Haughery, who were born a year apart, worked contemporaneously to help disadvantaged children in two different parts of New Orleans: Mother Henriette worked in the French Quarter and Treme, evangelizing and caring for enslaved and free people of color, while the Irish-born Haughery toiled in the city’s American sector, ultimately donating more than $600,000 from her businesses to fund New Orleans orphanages.
“Both of them were women living in a man’s world in an antebellum time period – going outside of what the traditional role of women was in New Orleans – to do something good for children,” Leumas observed.
Mother Henriette’s fledgling role as a spiritual advisor and catechist to enslaved and free people of color is borne out in a 1837-45 baptismal registry maintained by the Ursuline Sisters, who operated a school in the city’s Holy Cross neighborhood at the time. In that document, Henriette is listed as the godmother of Marie Therese Dagon.
Henriette’s name also appears in a St. Mary’s Italian Church wedding registrythat was specifically maintained for “people of color.” Her signature documents her witnessing of the1838 wedding of a free man of color and an enslaved woman named Loize (the entry also includes the signature of the bride’s “owner,” a Mr. L. Lacour).
A photo from 1899, taken 37 years after Mother Henriette’s death, shows that more than 40 Sisters of the Holy Family were serving their community’s convent-school at 717 Orleans St. (the current site of the Bourbon Orleans Hotel). There currently are about 70 Sisters of the Holy Family residing in New Orleans. The community’s 175-year-old legacy includes Lafon Nursing Facility, founded in 1841; St. Mary’s Academy; and mission schools in Belize and Nigeria. The motherhouse fronts St. Mary’s campus on Chef Menteur Highway in New Orleans East.
“Then she buys more cows and (ultimately) owns a dairy of 40 cows. Later on, she operates a bakery,” Leumas said, alluding to business receipts in the archdiocesan archives dating from the mid-19th century.
“Margaret continued to do nothing but give all of the profits and all of the food to the orphanage,” Leumas said. “She lived very poor her whole life, and when she died, all of the monies were divided among seven orphanages, with no requirement that it be Catholic.”
Haughery was so beloved among New Orleanians, she was given a state funeral upon her death in 1882. A statue was erected in her honor in 1884, becoming only the second statue of a woman to be erected in the United States.
Click here to view the Clarion Herald flipbook, “River of Faith: 300 Years as a New Orleans Catholic Community – 1718-2018”
Beth Donze can be reached at bdonze@clarionherald.org.