|
Rev. Jerome LeDoux (photo left)
Archdiocese Stuns Oldest African-American Parish with Closure
Archbishop Removes
Beloved Black Priest
Rev.
Jerome LeDoux, DWM
from St. Augustine Parish, New Orleans Black
Catholic Church
The Archdiocese of New Orleans has
confirmed its decision to dissolve historic St.
Augustine Parish effective March 15, 2006. The Pastoral
Council declares its opposition to this decision in a
prayerful way, with a 10-hour vigil beginning at 2 p.m.
Tuesday, March 14.
Pastoral Council president Sandra
Gordon stated: “In a post-Katrina world, historic St.
Augustine Parish is even more crucial to the healing
process of our city. It represents stability and
continuity in a faith-based community. It is the
foundation of our past on which we are building a better
future for all God’s children.”
|
St. Augustine is the one
of the oldest multicultural Roman Catholic
churches in the United States, established
in 1841 as a historic place where slaves
worshiped alongside free people of color and
New Orleanians of all races.
St. Augustine is a
cultural gathering place in the historical
Treme neighborhood welcoming visitors from
all over the world.
St. Augustine
parishioners will continue to worship in
their church as they have for 165 years.
The parish participated
in an appeals process, later described by
the Archdiocese as a “listening session.”
The pastoral council has
worked and will continue to work diligently
to conduct its affairs in an open and
business–like manner. |
Says Ms. Gordon, “We invite the
entire New Orleans community to join us for ten hours of
prayer, beginning at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, March 14, to
pray that the Archdiocese will give St. Augustine until
the end of the calendar year to demonstrate that it can
survive and thrive as a vibrant, spiritual parish in the
service of a healing New Orleans.”
Source:
St. Augustine Catholic Church-New Orleans
* *
* * *
 |
Archbishop Removes Beloved
Black Priest
from the oldest
Black Catholic church in U.S.
Archbishop Hughes called
me at 11:29 this morning to inform me that
he had heard the recommendation of the
Appeals Board that St. Augustine Church be
closed as a parish as of March 15, 2006. He
concurs with that recommendation,” Rev.
Jerome LeDoux, DWM, this week told
parishioners.LeDoux’s announcement signaled
the end of his 16-year tenure at the oldest
African American Roman Catholic Church in
the United States.
(Left Photo, Parish
Leaders ) |
“St. Augustine is among the parishes
the archdiocese plans to consolidate as it seeks to deal
with $84 million in uninsured losses,” according to an
Associated Press report.
“The archdiocese is careful to point out that St.
Augustine’s will only close as a parish but will still
be open for mass on Sundays and some other functions
like funerals and weddings.
“Its building suffered only wind damage from Katrina and
will remain open. ‘Show up on Sunday, and you won’t miss
a beat,’ said the Rev. William Maestri, a spokesman for
the archdiocese.”
Father LeDoux, 76, one of few Black Catholic priests in
New Orleans and undoubtedly the most beloved, will be
replaced by a white priest, Rev. Michael Jacques.
The fact that Jacques is being brought in is a clear
indication that the Archdiocese wants to get rid of
LeDoux, who is know for hard-hitting but God-inspired
columns in the Louisiana Weekly newspaper and other
publications.
Repeated calls to the Archdiocese of New Orleans and
emails from the San Francisco Bay View requesting
comments were not returned or answered.
Source: Bay View (reposted)' Saturday,
Mar. 18, 2006 at 8:13 AM /
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/03/1808498.php
* * *
* *
|
Catholic Hierarchy Engaged in Ethnic
Cleansing
Archbishop removes
beloved Black parish priest from the oldest
Black Catholic church in U.S.
By CC
Campbell-Rock
You shall know the truth
and the truth shall make you free.” – John
8:32
“Archbishop Hughes called
me at 11:29 this morning to inform me that
he had heard the recommendation of the
Appeals Board that St. Augustine Church be
closed as a parish as of March 15, 2006. He
concurs with that recommendation,” Rev.
Jerome LeDoux, DWM, this week told
parishioners.
(Right
Photo, Tomb of the Unknown Slave) |
 |
LeDoux’s announcement signaled the
end of his 16-year tenure at the oldest African American
Roman Catholic Church in the United States.
“St. Augustine is among the parishes
the archdiocese plans to consolidate as it seeks to deal
with $84 million in uninsured losses,” according to an
Associated Press report.
“The archdiocese is careful to point
out that St. Augustine’s will only close as a parish but
will still be open for mass on Sundays and some other
functions like funerals and weddings.
“Its building suffered only wind
damage from Katrina and will remain open. ‘Show up on
Sunday, and you won’t miss a beat,’ said the Rev.
William Maestri, a spokesman for the archdiocese.”
Father LeDoux, 76, one of few Black
Catholic priests in New Orleans and undoubtedly the most
beloved, will be replaced by a white priest, Rev.
Michael Jacques.
The fact that Jacques is being
brought in is a clear indication that the Archdiocese
wants to get rid of LeDoux, who is know for hard-hitting
but God-inspired columns in the Louisiana Weekly
newspaper and other publications.
Repeated calls to the Archdiocese of
New Orleans and emails from the San Francisco Bay View
requesting comments were not returned or answered.
The loss of LeDoux’s unique ministry
also represents the loss of control, by African
Americans, of a national treasure and historic landmark.
Dedicated in 1842, St. Augustine
Catholic Church, located at 1410 Governor Nicholls St.
in New Orleans’ famed Treme neighborhood, the oldest
Black subdivision in America, was partially financed by
free people of color and built by freedmen and slaves
alike.
In losing LeDoux, the parish of St.
Augustine Catholic Church is also losing a 164-year
tradition of serving the African-American community, as
well as LeDoux’s inimitable masses.
His weekly celebrations of faith
spoke to the souls of all parishioners. So popular were
his masses that his Sunday mass attracted visitors from
all over the world. And because LeDoux speaks at least
five languages, he greeted and often conversed with
celebrants from France, Germany, Sweden, Russia, and
Rome in their own languages.
From jazzy versions of the “Our
Father” prayer to the incorporation of the Negro
spirituals, “This Little Light of Mine,” “When the
Saints Go Marching In,” and “We Shall Overcome,” and
even the soul-stirring Motown hit, “Reach Out and Touch
Somebody’s Hand,” when you attended Rev. LeDoux’s
masses, you left with the gospel within and a respect
and love for all humanity.
“The timing is very bad. St.
Augustine’s is almost ready to resume worship,” added
LeDoux, who says he will return to the Divine Word
Missionary Seminary in Bay Saint Louis until he gets
another assignment.
The appointment of Rev. Jacques, who
sometimes wears kente cloth during masses at nearby St.
Peter Claver Church, also a Black parish, is symbolic of
the ethnic cleansing campaign being carried out by the
Roman Catholic Church leadership in New Orleans.
Rev. Jacques made headlines last June
when he joined Rabbi Ed Cohn of Temple Sinai in
protesting the New Orleans Police Department’s contract
with security expert Capt. Dennis Muhammad, CEO of ENOTA
(Educating Neighborhoods to Obey Those in Authority).
Capt. Muhammad had been contracted to
provide racial sensitivity training seminars to police
officers. However, the fact that Muhammad had been the
Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s security director
for 25 years immediately disqualified him in the eyes of
Jacques and Cohn.
Although he had conducted successful
workshops in New York and other states and also received
a grant from a Jewish foundation to work with the NYPD,
Muhammad’s track record didn’t persuade the men of the
cloth.
Jacques said the Nation of Islam has
“spoken so negatively” about Jews and Christians that it
raises the question of whether the program is “really
going to be the way for us to work together as a
community.” according to WorldNetDaily.
“Cohn compared the Nation of Islam to
the Ku Klux Klan and asserted that, ‘The character of
any individual that associates with Louis Farrakhan is
tainted,’” according to another news report.
The two raised so much hell that
Muhammad’s contract with the NOPD was cancelled.
Apparently, Muhammad was tried and
convicted, in the court of popular opinion, of guilt by
association. It was the same fate that would befall
LeDoux less than a year later.
In January 2006, St. Augustine
Catholic Church played host to a multi-denominational
ecumenical service. The event was to have taken place at
Rev. Dwight Webster’s Christian Unity Baptist Church,
but utilities had not yet been restored to that church.
Father LeDoux was called upon in the
12th hour to open his sanctuary to the gathering. St.
Augustine had sustained only minor wind damage, so he
agreed.
The event’s keynote speaker was the
Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.
Minister Farrakhan spoke at the
service about how God punished Louisiana and that if the
politicians continued to mistreat the least among them,
Katrina would be only the first of many disaster to
visit the city.
Moreover, during his annual Savior’s
Day address, Farrakhan last week “condemned the role of
the Roman Church as the mother of White supremacy and
the global practice of slave-making, and its silence in
the face of the 300 years that Black people were
enslaved in this country,” according to The Final Call
newspaper.
The Nation of Islam’s leader’s
presence at St. Augustine coupled with his recent
statement probably had a little to do with LeDoux
getting his walking papers less than two months later.
However, the wholesale gentrification
and ethnic cleansing that is going on in New Orleans
today – from voter disenfranchisement to FEMA’s lack of
response to developers and their redevelopment plans –
is catching, and the Roman Catholic Church is doing its
part to repel Black leadership such as LeDoux’s.
This is the same church that had
Black people sitting on the back pews until the federal
courts declared integration the law and the same church
that collected money from the back pews while relegating
Blacks to second-class status.
And Archbishop Alfred Hughes has a
“tainted” past himself. He was the second in command to
Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law, who was at the center of
a major grand jury investigation of the pedophile priest
scandal that rocked the nation.
“Law has insisted he left the
disciplining of individual priests to his top
subordinates – including Hughes, who served as Law’s
chief operation officer and vicar of administration from
November 1990 to January 1993,” according to the
Providence Phoenix newspaper. Hughes also had to testify
before the grand jury.
“In 1992, Hughes received a call from
the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office regarding
a Hingham pastor named Father John Hanlon, who had been
indicted on child-rape charges. Hughes knew Hanlon had
other victims. But he withheld the names of those who
had complained to the Boston archdiocese,” the
Providence Phoenix reported.
“Only a few other church officials
have had access to the secret archives of the
archdiocese of Boston during Law’s tenure. Among them
was Law’s former second-in-command, Alfred C. Hughes,
who is now archbishop of New Orleans.”
Hughes also last year boycotted a
ceremony honoring the Landrieu family because both Mitch
Landrieu, the state lieutenant governor who is now
running for mayor, and his sister, U.S. Sen. Mary
Landrieu, support a woman’s right to choose.
However, Hughes, who has only been in
New Orleans for the past five years, apparently couldn’t
care less about the historical legacy of St. Augustine.
St. Augustine Church, named for Saint
Augustine of Hippo, an African bishop who lived from 354
to 430, has been the church home to many of the city’s
prominent free people of color, slaves and African
Americans.
The property on which St. Augustine
stands was part of the plantation estate which had been
a tilery and brickyard headquarters built in 1720 by the
Company of the Indies as an economic stimulus for the
province.
In 1731, the plantation was sold to
the Moreau family, eventually coming into the possession
of Julie Moreau, a manumitted slave, in 1775. Claude
Treme, a Frenchman, married Julie Moreau, thus taking
title to the property.
They sold off lots to free people of
color and others pouring in from the Old Quarter jammed
with Haitian immigrants fleeing the bloody 1791
revolution in Haiti.
Later, Henriette Delille, a free
woman of color, and Juliette Gaudin, a Cuban, began
aiding slaves, orphan girls, the uneducated, the sick
and the elderly among people of color around 1823.
Today, Delille, who has been beatified, is being
considered for sainthood.
The two women knelt publicly at the
altar of St. Augustine Church on Nov. 21, 1842, and
pledged to live in the community and serve its people.
They founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy
Family. The school they founded, the all-girls St.
Mary’s Academy, recently merged with the all-boys St.
Augustine High School and all-girls Xavier Preparatory
High School.
Additionally, historical figures such
as Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in Plessy vs. Ferguson,
which resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court’s “separate but
equal” decision of May 18, 1896, and Alexander P.
Tureaud Sr., a giant among civil rights attorneys, were
members of St. Augustine Church.
* *
* * *
If you disagree with the termination
of Rev. Jerome LeDoux, here’s what you can do: Write to
Archbishop Hughes in care of Rev. Maestri at
communications@archdiocese-no.org or call Bishop
Morin at (504) 861-6262 or write to him at
bishopmorin@archdiocese-no.org.
You can also write to the Holy See,
Pope Benedict XVI at office@net.va, or at the Vatican
newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano,
ornet@ossrom.va, or
call the Vatican switchboard, +39.06.6982, the Basilica
of Saint Peter Sacristy, +39.06.69883712, or the Parish
Office, +39.06.69885435 or +39.06.69883653; fax
+39.06.69885793.
* *
* * *
CC Campbell-Rock, a native
New Orleanian, veteran journalist and Katrina evacuee,
is now the editor of the Bay View. Email her at
campbellrock@sfbayview.com.
Source: BayView
http://sfbayview.com/031506/ethniccleansing031506.shtml
* * *
* *
Summary of Church History
The
property on which St. Augustine stands was part of the
plantation estate which had been a tilery and brickyard
headquarters built in 1720 by the province of New
Orleans’ supervisor, the Company of the Indies, as an
economic stimulus for the province. After the Company of
the Indies left in 1731, the plantation was sold to the
Moreau family, eventually coming into the possession of
Julie Moreau, a manumitted slave, in 1775. Claude Treme,
a Frenchman, married Julie Moreau, thus taking title to
the property. Seeing a chance to make a profit, the
husband and wife subdivided the estate and sold off many
lots on a first-come-first-served basis to free people
of color and others pouring in from the Old Quarter
jammed with Haitian immigrants fleeing the bloody 1791
revolution in Haiti.
After
selling 35 lots, Claude and Julie Treme left their
plantation home for a more peaceful life in 1810. In
1834, Jeanne Marie Aliquot purchased the Treme’s former
home and property from the city of New Orleans and
brought in the United States’ first Catholic elementary
school for free girls of color and a few slaves. This
school had been started in 1823 by Marthe Fortier, a
onetime postulant of the Hospital Nuns. Jeanne Marie
Aliquot became a major catalyst in the origins of St.
Augustine Church.
Under
economic duress from her social ventures, Jeanne Marie
sold the house to the Ursuline Sisters in 1836.
 |
They in turn sold the
property to the Carmelites in 1840, who then
took over the little school for colored
girls and merged it with their school for
white girls. The Carmelite Sisters used the
Treme home for their motherhouse until 1926
when they moved out to Robert E. Lee
Boulevard in the West End section of New
Orleans.
In
the late 1830s, when free people of color
got permission from Bishop Antoine Blanc to
build a church, the Ursulines donated the
corner property at Bayou Road (now Governor
Nicholls St.) and St. Claude which they had
bought for $10,000, on the condition that
the church be named after their foundress,
St. Angela Merici. However, circumstances
dictated that the church was named St.
Augustine.
(Photo left, Mount
Caramel Motherhouse) |
A few
months before the October 9, 1842 dedication of St.
Augustine Church, the people of color began to purchase
pews for their families to sit. Upon hearing of this,
white people in the area started a campaign to buy more
pews than the colored folks. Thus, The War of the Pews
began and was ultimately won by the free people of color
who bought three pews to every one purchased by the
whites. In an unprecedented social, political and
religious move, the colored members also bought all the
pews of both side aisles. They gave those pews to the
slaves as their exclusive place of worship, a first in
the history of slavery in the United States.
|
This
mix of the pews resulted in the most
integrated congregation in the entire
country: one large row of free people of
color, one large row of whites with a
smattering of ethnics, and two outer aisles
of slaves. Except for a brief six-month
period when its sanctuary was enlarged and
blessed in time for Christmas 1925, St.
Augustine Church has been in continuous use
as a place of worship until the present
time.
In
the midst of all these things, Henriette
Delille, a free woman of color, and Juliette
Gaudin, a Cuban, began aiding slaves, orphan
girls, the uneducated, the sick and the
elderly among people of color around 1823.
|
 |
Their particular concern for the
education and care of colored children aided greatly in
the founding, financing, staffing and administration of
the city’s early private schools for the colored.
At the urging of Jeanne Marie Aliquot
and the wise counseling of Pere Etienne Rousselin, the
two women knelt publicly at the altar of St. Augustine
Church on November 21, 1842 and pledged to live in
community to work for orphan girls, the uneducated, the
poor, the sick and the elderly among the free people of
color, thus founding the Congregation of the Sisters of
the Holy Family, after the Oblates of Providence founded
in Baltimore in 1828, the second-oldest African-American
congregation of religious women.
Historical
figures such as Homer Plessy, of Plessy vs. Ferguson
fame from the U.S. Supreme Court decision on May 18,
1896, and Alexander P. Tureaud, Sr., a giant among the
civil rights attorneys of the stormy sixties, were
members of St. Augustine Church
Source:
St. Augustine Catholic Church-New Orleans
posted 18 March 2006
* * *
* *
|
Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered
the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It
By H. W. Brands
In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today. He concludes with a sobering dissection of the 2008 world financial debacle, which exposed the power--and the enormous risks--of the dollar's worldwide reign. The Economy |
 |
* *
* * *
|
|
Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
* *
* * *
The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
* * * * *
* *
* * *
update 2 March 2012
|
