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15th Archbishop (18th Bishop) of New Orleans
(2025 - present)
James Checchio was born on 21 April 1966, in Camden, New Jersey, to James and Helen Checchio. He attended St. John School in Collingwood, New Jersey, then Paul VI High School in Haddon Township, New Jersey, where he graduated in 1984. Cheechio then entered the University of Scranton, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy in 1988.
Discerning an ecclesiastical vocation, Cheechio received priestly formation from the North American College in Rome, while earning a theology degree from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey, on 20 June 1992, in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, by the Bishop of Camden from 1989 to 1998, the Most Reverend James McHugh.
Father Checchio served as associate priest at St. Peter Parish in Merchantville in 1992 and 1993. He earned a Licentiate in Canon Law in 1993. He served as parochial vicar at St. Agnes Parish in Blackwood from 1993 to 1995, and then as associate priest at St. Peter Celestine Parish in Cherry Hill in 1996.
In 1997, Bishop McHugh appointed Father Checchio as his priest secretary. At the same time, Father Checchio: (a) worked on the Diocesan Tribunal as Defender of the Bond in annulment cases, (b) received appointment as Vice-Chancellor of the Diocese of Camden, and (c) served as assistant director of the Office of Public Relations and Communications.
On 7 December 1998, Pope St. John Paul II transferred Bishop McHugh from Camden, to become coadjutor bishop of Rockville Centre. On 8 June 1999, the Auxiliary Bishop of Newark, the Most Reverend Nicholas DiMarzio, followed as sixth Bishop of Camden, until 2003.
In the year of his appointment, 1999, Bishop DiMarzio reappointed Father Checchio as priest-secretary, and added Moderator of the Diocesan Curia.
In 2000, Father Checchio was appointed a chaplain of His Holiness by Pope John Paul II. A "Chaplain of His Holiness" is a title of distinction given by pope’s to recognize a priest's service to the Church, it is a first degree prelature without territorial jurisdiction entitling recipients to be addressed as "Monsignor".
In 2001, Monsignor Checchio, became administrator of Holy Spirit Parish in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Three years later, in 2004, he became episcopal vicar for administration. In this period, Monsignor Checchio also earned a Master of Business Administration degree from La Salle University in Philadelphia.
In 2004, Monsignor Checchio was appointed vice-rector of his alma mater, the Pontifical North American College in Rome. The following year, on 12 December 2005, he was promoted to rector, the ecclesiastical equivalent of a college president and chief executive office. In 2011, Pope Benedict XVI elevated Checchio to the second degree of prelature, Honorary Prelate of His Holiness, which is a higher level of Monsignor.
Five years later, on 8 March 2016, Pope Francis appointed Monsignor Checchio to follow Bishop Paul Bootkoski as fifth Bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey. Checchio received episcopal ordination on 3 May 2016 at the Church of the Sacred Heart in South Plainfield, New Jersey.
The Principal Consecrator was the Most Reverend John Joseph Myers, Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey. The Principal Co-Consecrators were Checchio’s predecessor, the Most Rev. Paul Gregory Bootkoski, Bishop Emeritus of Metuchen, New Jersey, along with the Most Rev. Dennis Joseph Sullivan, then Bishop of Checchio’s home diocese of Camden, New Jersey.
On September 24, 2025, the Most Reverend James Checchio was appointed Coadjutor bishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans by Pope Leo XIV.
Checchio’s installation was announced to take place in St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans, on 18 November 2025.
See: “Pope Leo XIV Appoints Bishop Checchio as Coadjutor Archbishop of New Orleans,” Website, Diocese of Metuchen (23 September 2025):
https://diometuchen.org/news/pope-leo-xiv-appoints-metuchens-bishop-james-f-checchio-as-coadjutor-archbishop-of-new-orleansArchbishop Gregory Michael Aymond
14th Archbishop (17th Bishop) of New Orleans
(r. 12 Jun 2009 Appointed - Present)
The future fourteenth Archbishop of New Orleans was the first born in the city. Gregory Michael Aymond was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on 12 November 1949. He attended St. James Major Elementary School and Cor Jesu High School before discerning his priestly vocation.
Accepted by the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Aymond was assigned to undergraduate studies at St. Joseph Seminary College (locally “St. Ben’s”) on the ground of St. Joseph Abbey, in St. Benedict, Louisiana.
After receiving his Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from St. Ben's in 1971, Aymond went to Notre Dame, culminating in priestly ordination on 10 May 1975.
From 1981 to 1986, he was professor of pastoral theology and homiletics and Director of Education at Notre Dame Seminary.
In 1986, Aymond became the Third President and Thirteenth Rector of Notre Dame Seminary (NDS) in New Orleans. Archbishop Aymond also served as the executive director of the archdiocesan Department of Christian Formation, with responsibility for Catholic schools and religious education, and as the Archdiocesan Director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
On Tuesday, 19 November 1996, Archbishop Schulte announced that Aymond had been named Auxiliary-Bishop of New Orleans, and that Aymond would remain rector of NDS, while discharging his additional duties as vicar-general and auxiliary-bishop. Aymond’s ordination as bishop took place on 10 January 1997, in St. Louis Cathedral. Aymond was the first rector of NDS to simultaneously serve as auxiliary-bishop.
Three years later, during the turning of the millennium, Aymond was appointed Coadjutor-Bishop of the Diocese of Austin, Texas. He was welcomed on 3 August 2000, and succeeded as Bishop of Austin on 2 January 2001.
Under his tenure, the Diocese of Austin experienced unprecedented expansion, including a threefold increase in the number of seminarians. He established the Institute for Spiritual Direction, opened San Juan Diego Catholic High School for students from low-income families, opened St. Dominic Savio Catholic High School and initiated a distance learning program with St. Mary's University in San Antonio that allows lay people in the Austin Diocese to obtain master's degrees in theology.
Archbishop Aymond also served as chairman of the U.S. Bishops' Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People. He also was chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Catholic Educational Association from 2000-04.
Eight years later, Aymond returned home as Fourteenth Archbishop of New Orleans: He was appointed on 12 June 2009, and installed on August 20th of the same year.
In 2014, Archbishop Aymond initiated a diocesan synod. In Canon Law, a synod is defined in Canon 460 as: “an assembly of selected priests and other members of Christ's faithful of a particular Church which, for the good of the whole diocesan community, assists the diocesan Bishop.”
Only eight synods had been called previously. Archbishop Aymond summoned the Ninth General Synod in 2014, to guide the archdiocese's mission through five key priorities: forming welcoming communities, embracing Christ in families and parishes, ministering to families and youth, preparing servant leaders, and being a voice for Catholic social teaching.
On 12 November 2024, Archbishop Aymond turned seventy-five, after sixteen years as Archbishop of New Orleans. According to the terms of the Apostolic Letter Ecclesiae Sanctae (no.11) issued by Pope Paul VI moto proprio on 6 August 1966, all bishops must submit a retirement letter to the Holy See upon completing their seventy-fifth year. This requirement was later written into the 1983 revision of the Code of Canon Law, canon 401. The Holy Father can immediately accept the retirement, or can ask the bishop to continue service.
On 24 September 2025, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, announced that the 267th Pope, Leo XIV, appointed Most Reverend James F. Checchio, Bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey, as Coadjutor Archbishop of New Orleans.
Canonically, this meant that when Archbishop Aymond retired, Checchio automatically succeeded as fifteenth Archbishop of New Orleans. The plan was for Aymond to remain until the bankruptcy was closed, and then retire.
See: Peter Finney, Jr., “Native Son Returns to Lead Archdiocese,” Clarion Herald (20 June 2009), Welcoming Archbishop Aymomd: https://www.thecatholicnewsarchive.org/?a=d&d=cher20090620-01.1.2&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN--------%2FArchbishop Alfred Clifton Hughes
13th Archbishop (16th Bishop) of New Orleans
(r. 3 Jan 2002 to ret. 12 Jun 2009)
Alfred Clifton Hughes was born in the West Roxbury area of Boston, Massachusetts, on 2 December 1932, the third of four children born to Alfred and Ellen (Hennessey) Hughes. Hughes was baptized in St. Theresa Parish in West Roxbury, and attended public elementary school, followed by Boston College High School.
Having discerned a call to priesthood, Hughes entered the college seminary of the Archdiocese of Boston, St. John’s in Brighton, MA, where he earned a degree in philosophy in 1954.
Hughes was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Boston on 15 December 1957, and assigned as Associate Pastor to St. Stephen’s Parish, Framingham, MA.
Hughes was instructed to return to the Gregorian University in Rome in order to pursue doctoral studies in Spiritual Theology. Completing this task in 1961, Father Hughes returned home for assignment to Our Lady Help of Christians Parish, in Newton, MA, as Associate Pastor.
In 1962, Father Hughes was appointed to return to his college alma mater, St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, MA, where he remained until 1986: from 1962 to 1965 as teacher of Philosophy and Spiritual Theology; from 1965 to 1981 as teacher of Spiritual Theology, and Spiritual Director, and from 1981 to 1986 as Rector of the seminary.
On July 21 1981, Father Hughes was informed that he was going to become Bishop Hughes. He was ordained Auxiliary-Bishop of Boston, on 14 September 1981, meaning that his five years as Rector of St. John’s Seminary were as Bishop-Rector.
In 1986, he was transferred out of the seminary, and appointed Regional Bishop of the Merrimack Region of the Archdiocese of Boston, from 1986 to 1990. In 1990, he was named Vicar-General and Moderator of the Curia of the Archdiocese of Boston, from 1990 to 1993.
Bishop Hughes was transferred out of his home state on 7 September 1993, when Pope John Paul II appointed him the Fourth Bishop of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Hughes was installed on 4 November 1993.
Eight years later, one year before Archbishop Schulte was to reach retirement age, Hughes was appointed Coadjutor-Archbishop of New Orleans on 16 February 2001, and welcomed on 2 May 2001. He became Archbishop on 3 January 2002, when Archbishop Schulte retired.
Hughes visited ninety of the archdiocese’s 142 parishes while still a coadjutor to familiarize himself with the people and local culture.
Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana on Monday, 29 August 2005. Fifty breeches in the levees protecting New Orleans opened as the wind and wave force overwhelmed their capacity. One million people along the gulf coast were displaced. Eighteen-hundred died.
In the inevitable reorganization after such a catastrophe, thirty-four church parishes in the Archdiocese of New Orleans were closed (from 142 to 108).
On 12 June 2009, Pope Benedict XVI accepted Hughes retirement. He served as Apostolic Administrator until succeeded by the Most Rev. Gregory M. Aymond, the first Archbishop of New Orleans born in the city.
Archbishop Hughes retired as Archbishop on 20 August 2009. He moved into Notre Dame Seminary, where he resumed the teaching of Spiritual Theology, and being a Spiritual Director for seminarians, that he enjoyed for years before being called to the episcopate.
See: Peter Finney, Jr., “Archbishop Hughes Didn’t Shrink From Tough Calls,” Clarion Herald (20 June 2009): Retirement Tribute. https://www.thecatholicnewsarchive.org/?a=d&d=cher20090620-01.1.2&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN--------%2FArchbishop Francis Bible Schulte
12th Archbishop (15th Bishop) of New Orleans
(r. 6 Dec 1988 to ret. 3 Jan 2002)
Archbishop Hannan's successor, the Most Rev. Francis Bible Schulte, was named Twelfth Archbishop of New Orleans on December 13, 1988, and installed in St. Louis Cathedral on February 14, 1989.
Born an only child to an Oak Lane, Philadelphia, family on December 23, 1926, Schulte was the third generation of his family to enter the priesthood.
Francis B. Schulte's attended the Norwood Academy and at St. Joseph Preparatory Seminary in Philadelphia. He entered St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook in 1944, along with 549 other seminarians. Thirty members of his graduation class of 180 from St. Joseph joined him in pursuing studies for the priesthood.
After completing his studies at St. Charles, Schulte was ordained in the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia on May 10, 1952, by Most Rev. John O'Hara, Archbishop of Philadelphia.
In 1980, Monsignor Schulte was made pastor of St. Margaret Parish in Narberth, a position he held until being ordained Auxiliary-Bishop of Philadelphia on 12 August 1981.
On 4 June 1985, Schulte was named Sixth Bishop of Wheeling Charleston, which included all 128 parishes serving the 107,000 Catholics in the entire State of West Virginia.
Bishop Schulte remained in this position until being transferred to the See of New Orleans on 12 December 1988; he was installed as Twelfth Archbishop of New Orleans on February 14, 1989.
On 19 November 1996, it was announced that Monsignor Gregory Aymond, then Recgtor of Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, was being appointed Auxiliary-Bishop of New Orleans.
Archbishop Schulte retired on 3 January 2002, whereupon Coadjutor Alfred Hughes automatically succeeded (see below). Archbishop Hughes invited Schulte to continue living in the Archbishop’s Residence, which they shared until Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans on 29 August 2005.
As Schulte had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, he relocated to Philadelphia for ongoing treatment while New Orleans rebuilt. Schulte died on 17 Jan 2016, at the sage of eighty-nine. His remains were interred underneath the sanctuary of St. Louis Cathedral along with many of his predecessors.
See: Peter Finney, Jr., “A Faithful Shepherd,” Clarion Herald (30 Jan 2016): Obituary Tribute to Archbishop Schulte. https://www.thecatholicnewsarchive.org/?a=d&d=cher20160130-01.1.1&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN--------%2FArchbishop Philip Matthew Hannan
11th Archbishop (14th Bishop) of New Orleans
(r. 29 Sep 1965 to ret. 6 Dec 1988)
Nineteen days after Hurricane Betsy flooded parts of New Orleans and St. Bernard, the Most Rev. Philip Matthew Hannan was informed of his assignment to succeed Cody as Eleventh Archbishop of New Orleans.
Hannan was born in the family home, 1501 17th Street, Washington, D.C., on 20 May 1913, the fifth of seven children born to Patrick Francis and Lillian Louise (Keefe) Hannan.
Hannan discerned a priestly vocation, for which he was sent to minor seminary at St. Charles College in Catonsville, Maryland, then major seminary in Rome.
Hannan was ordained a priest in Rome on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, 8 December 1939, three months after the Second World War began with the Nazi invasion of Poland.
First assigned to St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in the Hamden area of Baltimore, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941, Hannan received permission from the Archbishop of Baltimore, the Most Rev. Michael Curley, to volunteer as a military chaplain.
Hannan volunteered to act as chaplain to the 82nd Airborne, and was assigned to the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He stayed with them until the end of the war, serving in Belgium, France, and Germany, including liberating a concentration camp at Woebbelin.
Upon his return home, Hannan used the G.I. Bill to return to Catholic University in order to obtain a doctorate in Canon Law. During his post-graduate studies, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., was created out of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, on 15 November 1947. The day Hannan completed his doctorate, in 1949, he was appointed vice-chancellor of this new Archdiocese.
In the spring of 1956, Hannan was informed that he was to be appointed Auxiliary-Bishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., for which office he was ordained on 16 June 1956.
On 22 November 1963, Hannan was staying at the Eden Hotel in Rome, when Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dealey Plaza, in Dallas, Texas. It took place at 7:21 p.m. Rome time.
Owing to a personal connection previously established, the late President’s wife, Jacqueline “Jackie” Kennedy, asked Bishop Hannan to deliver the funeral eulogy at the Requiem Mass in St. Matthew’s Cathedral, on Monday, 25 November 1963.
In 1965, Hannan returned to Rome for the fourth and final session of Vatican II. There he learned, on 29 September 1965, that he was to become the Eleventh Archbishop of New Orleans. He received permission to leave the Council early in order to celebrate Mass with the people, and begin the rebuilding after Hurricane Betsy twenty days earlier. He was formally installed on 13 October 1965.
Hannan maintained a striking commitment to social justice. He founded a Social Apostolate program in 1966 which provides over twenty million pounds of free food each year to 42,000 people in need.
Hannan was archbishop when Pope St. John Paul II made his apostolic visit to New Orleans (September 11th -> 13th, 1987), the first ever papal visit to the city. Hannan gave the pope a tour of the city, and housed the pope in his own home on the campus of Notre Dame Seminary.
During Hannan’s tenure, the Archdiocese of New Orleans was subdivided three times:
Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana: founded on 2 March 1977, encompassing all of Terrebonne and Lafourche civil parishes, along with parts of Saint Mary and Jefferson parishes.
Diocese of Lake Charles, Louisiana: founded on 29 January 1980, by detaching from the Diocese of Lafayette, the civil parishes of: Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, and Jefferson Davis.
Diocese of Shreveport, Louisiana: founded on 16 June 1986, by detaching from the Diocese of Alexandria, the civil parishes of: Caddo, Bossier, Webster, Claiborne, Lincoln, Union, Morehouse, West Carroll, DeSoto, Bienville, Jackson, Ouachita, Richland, Red River, and Sabine.
In keeping with a ruling instituted by Pope Paul VI in 1970, Hannan submitted his retirement on his seventy-fifth birthday, 20 May 1988, which was accepted by the Holy See on 6 December 1988. He maintained a very active lifestyle until a series of strokes diminished his energy.
In June of 2011, Hannan moved in to the Chateau de Notre Dame, and died there on Thursday, 29 September 2011, four months after his ninety-eighth birthday. He was interred in St. Louis cathedral on Thursday, 6 October 2011.
See: Archbishop Philip M. Hannan, The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots: Memoir of an Extraordinary Life (Huntingdon, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2010).Archbishop John Patrick Cody
10th Archbishop (13th Bishop) of New Orleans
(r. 8 Nov 1964 to transfer 14 Jun 1965)
In his declining years, Archbishop Rummel experienced progressive loss of sight attributed to Glaucoma, a disease in which elevated intraocular pressure damages the optic nerve, diminishing, and eventually ending, the transmission of light-generated nerve impulses from the retina to the brain.
To help, the Holy See appointed a Coadjutor-Archbishop, meaning designated successor, on 10 August 1961, and an Apostolic Administrator on 1 June 1962. Both of these positions were held by the same man, the Most Reverend John P. Cody.
John Patrick Cody was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on Christmas Eve, 1907, to Thomas Joseph and Mary (Begley) Cody.
In 1926, Cody was sent to Rome for major seminary, residing in the North American College, and taking courses at the Urban College. He earned a Doctorate in Philosophy in 1928, and was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of St. Louis on 8 December 1931; he remained to complete a Doctorate in Sacred Theology in 1932.
Two years after the conclusion of the Second World War, Cody was appointed Auxiliary-Bishop of his home Archdiocese of St. Louis, and ordained on 2 July 1947.
Seven years later, Cody was named Coadjutor-Bishop of the Diocese of Kansas City, Missouri on 19 January 1954.
Two years later, on 11 September 1956, Cody became bishop of a newly combined Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri.
Five years later, on 10 August 1961, Cody was named Coadjutor-Archbishop of New Orleans, and, on June 1st of the following year, Apostolic Administrator. When Archbishop Rummel died on 8 November 1964, Cody automatically became the Tenth Archbishop of New Orleans.
A prodigious builder, Cody established twenty-five new parishes, twelve new elementary schools, and inaugurated construction projects totaling $34 million dollars.
During the final year of Vatican II, on 14 June 1965, Cody was notified of his appointment as Archbishop of Chicago.
Two years later, in 1967, Cody was named to the College of Cardinals, in which capacity he participated in both Conclaves of 1978, the first electing Pope John Paul I (on August 26th), and the second electing Pope John Paul II (on October 16th).
Cody died as Archbishop of Chicago four years later, on 25 April 1982, four months after his seventy-fourth birthday.
See: “John Cardinal Cody Dies; Chicago Leader was 74,” New York Times, Special (26 April 1982): https://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/26/obituaries/john-cardinal-cody-dies-chicago-leader-was-74.htmlArchbishop Joseph Francis Rummel
9th Archbishop (12th Bishop) of New Orleans
(r. 9 Mar 1935 to d. 8 Nov 1964)
Born in Steinmauern, a village in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany, on 14 October 1876, to Gustav and Theresa (Bollweber) Rummel, the future Archbishop, Joseph Francis, was their only child. They relocated to the U.S.A. in 1882.
Young Joseph attended elementary school at St. Boniface, on East 47th Street, New York City, He later attributed his vocation to the encouragement of a teacher at St. Boniface, Sr. Mary Cecilia, O.S.D.
When the Archdiocese of New York opened St. Joseph Seminary in Dunwoodie, New York, Rummel was among the first group of students beginning classes in September of 1896.
Three years later, in the Fall of 1899, Rummel was sent to the North American College in Rome to study Theology, at the conclusion of which he was ordained to the priesthood on 24 May 1902 in the Basilica of S. John Lateran, Rome, by Cardinal Respighi. Rummel remained in Rome, completing a Doctorate in Sacred Theology in 1903.
Rummel learned, on 30 March 1928, that Pope Pius XI had appointed him Fourth Bishop of Omaha, Nebraska.
Ordained a Bishop on 29 May 1928, in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, by Cardinal Patrick Hayes of New York. During Rummel’s seven years in Omaha the diocese grew to 135 parishes serving 98,000 Catholics. In September of 1930, Rummel hosted the Sixth National Eucharistic Congress in Omaha, attended by 50,000 people, making a deep impression on Rummel and the Catholics of Nebraska.
Rummel was appointed Archbishop of New Orleans on 9 Mar 1935, at the age of fifty-eight. He remained in this remaining twenty-nine years of his life.
As Archbishop of New Orleans, Rummel hosted the Eighth National Eucharistic Congress in October of 1938. The high-point of the Congress was a gathering of 150,000 people in City Park Stadium for the final Benediction.
The Second World War wrecked much of the world between 1939 and 1945. The United States entered after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor Naval Base on 7 December 1941.
NDS alumni would serve as chaplains during the Second World War. Rev. Malcolm B. Strassel ('34) served in the Navy, the others in the Army or Army Air Corps (antecedent of the Air Force): Rev. M.J. Broussard; Rev. L. C. Habetz; Rev. Harrison A. Martin; Rev. Raymond Moore; Rev. Patrick L. Regan; Rev. Austin Carrico; Rev. John H. Lacour; and Rev. Joseph V. Lafeur.
Rev. Joseph Verbis Lafleur was ordained for the Diocese of Lafayette, on 2 April 1938. His first assignment was to St. Mary Magdalene in Abbeville, where he remained until he volunteered to serve as a chaplain to the Army Air Corps in 1939.
In July of 1941, only five months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Fr. Joseph Verbis Lafleur, Lieutenant, Junior Grade, reported to Clark Field sixty miles outside of Manila, as chaplain to the 19th Bombardment Group. Lafleur was captured by the Japanese army and remained a prisoner of war until his death.
By the first week of September 1944, the Japanese realized that the Americans were on the threshold of capturing the Philippines. Rather than surrender the prisoners in Davoa, where Lafleur was incarcerated, they herded him and over 700 others into the hold of a rusting freighter.
The ship flew no white flag, so was considered a target of opportunity. The falling bombs opened a hole in the deck above the area where the prisoners were being held. Lafleur was last seen at the base of the flooding, smoke-filled hole assisting others up through the only opening to freedom. Lafleur remained there until he drowned.
After his deeds were recorded for the Department of Defense, Lafleur was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star for heroism, in addition to the Distinguished Service Cross.
After World War II ended in 1945, Archbishop Rummel joined the rest of the country in rebuilding. In 1949, he integrated Notre Dame Seminary by accepting its first seminarian of African-American descent, Rev. Aubry Osborn, later ordained in 1953.
In the year Rummel ordained Father Osborn, the archbishop promulgated a pastoral letter: “Blessed are the Peacemakers” (15 March 1953), explaining his intention to integrate Catholic Schools [Letter at: https://nolacatholic.org/pastoral-letters-and-resources ].
The Second Vatican Council, the twenty-first Ecumenical Council recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, met from 1962 to 1965, composing in that time sixteen documents that reshaped church practice on all levels. Archbishop Rummel attended the first session of the Council, prior to his death on 8 November 1964. His successor as Archbishop of New Orleans, the Most Rev. John P. Cody, also attended the Council, as did Cody’s successor in New Orleans, the Most Rev. Philip M. Hannan.
The population of the city rapidly expanded, as did the need for community services, especially schools. Over the next thirty years, the Catholic population in the Archdiocese would double to over 762,000, and the number of students in Catholic schools grew from fewer than 40,000 to over 85,000.
During Rummel's episcopacy, forty-five new church parishes were created throughout the archdiocese, increasing the number of parishes from 135 to 180.
During Rummel’s tenure, the Archdiocese of New Orleans was subdivided again to create the Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana: founded on 22 July 1961, with cathedral in the capital city of Louisiana.
Archbishop Rummel died in New Orleans on November 9, 1964, at the age of 88. He was succeeded by John Cody, the Coadjutor Archbishop (1961–1964). Rummel is interred under the sanctuary at Saint Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter.
See: Roger Baudier, ed. “Most Rev. Joseph Francis Rummel: Diamond Jubilee,” Catholic Action of the South (Archdiocese of New Orleans, 51, no. 3 (May 1962).Archbishop John William Shaw
8th Archbishop (11th Bishop) of New Orleans
(r. 25 Jan 1918 to d. 2 Nov 1934)
John William Shaw, who would become the Eighth Archbishop of New Orleans and founder of Notre Dame Seminary, was the fifth of the six children born in Mobile, Alabama, to Irish Catholic immigrants Patrick and Elizabeth Shaw; John William was born on 12 Dec 1863.
Discerning an ecclesiastical vocation, Shaw was accepted by the Diocese of Mobile, which did not have a seminary. He was therefore sent to Ireland for minor seminary, followed by major seminary in Rome. Shaw was ordained a priest on 26 May 1888; in the Cathedral of the Diocese of Rome, the Basilica of St. John Lateran.
In 1892, Shaw was appointed rector of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Mobile, with the additional appointment of Chancellor being given in 1896.
Shaw discharged these duties until being appointed Coadjutor Bishop of San Antonio, Texas, on 7 February 1910, to assist the ailing Third Bishop of that city, Jean-Antoine Forest (r. 1895-1911), who had suffered a debilitating stroke on 16 September 1909. Shaw was ordained bishop on 14 April 1910, and automatically succeeded to the see when Forest died on 11 March 1911.
In 1915, five years after his arrival, Shaw opened the first seminary in San Antonio, named for his personal patron, St. John. It opened on 2 October 1915 with a Mass offered by Shaw in the seminary chapel. Its institutional descendent, at a different location, is Assumption Seminary in San Antonio.
Bishop John W. Shaw’s Metropolitan superior, Archbishop James H. Blenk of New Orleans, died on 20 April 1917.
On 25 January 1918, Shaw learned that he was going to succeed Blenk as the Eighth Archbishop of New Orleans (1918-1934).
Shaw arrived in Louisiana in the same month that the southwestern portion of the State was carved out by the Holy See to form the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, between the Atchafalaya Basin and the Sabine River. The decree regarding Lafayette was released on 11 January 1918, and Shaw was appointed to New Orleans on 25 January 1918.
Archbishop Shaw retained his interest in cultivating priestly and religious vocations among local Catholic families, and for providing them priestly formation near home, without spending years studying in Europe as circumstances required him to do.
The result was Notre Dame Seminary, constructed by Shaw after prodigious fund-raising, and opening in September of 1923 on Carrollton Avenue, New Orleans (where it remains to this day).
Shaw hosted an open house on 8 September 1923, during which 15,000 people walked the new halls of the seminary; classes began the following week.
On Friday, 2 November 1934, the Solemnity of All Souls, Shaw died at 9:20 am, at the age of seventy-one, after a series of heart attacks.
Shaw’s Funeral Mass took place in his Cathedral, St. Louis King of France in the French Quarter, on 6 November 1934, at 10 am, in the presence of one Archbishop, ten Bishops, three Abbots, twelve Monsignors, and 275 priests.
Shaw had established forty new churches, and twenty-nine parochial schools. Notre Dame Seminary, his pride and joy, had produced sixty-three priests for five dioceses in eleven years.
See: Rev. Mark S. Raphael, Ph.D., John William Shaw: First American-born Archbishop of New Orleans (1918-1934), Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Dissertation Publishing, ProQuest LLC, 2010. Rev. Mark S. Raphael, Ph.D., A Southern Catholic Legacy: Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, Louisiana (Lulu Publishing Services, 2016).Archbishop James Hubert Blenk, S.M.
The future seventh archbishop of New Orleans, James Hubert Blenk, was born in Edenkoben, Rhenish Palatinate, to James and Catherine (née Wiedemann) Blenk. Born and raised in a Lutheran family, the youngest of seventeen children, Blenk is the only convert to serve as archbishop of New Orleans.
7th Archbishop (10th Bishop) of New Orleans
(r. 20 Apr 1906 to d. 20 Apr 1917)
In 1866, the Blenk family left Germany and moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. James Hubert’s parents both died only weeks after arriving. James was brought up by Catholics, and therefore converted at age twelve, receiving baptism in 1869 in St. Alphonsus Church in New Orleans. He later received Confirmation from Archbishop Napoléon-Joseph Perché.
Discerning a religious vocation, Blenk joined the Society of Mary, which sent him to France for formation: first to the Marist House of Studies in Belley, France, then to the novitiate in Lyons, then for further at the Catholic University of Ireland in Dublin.
Blenk was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Francis Redwood on August 16, 1885. Upon his return to Louisiana in October 1885, Father Blenk served as professor at his alma mater of Jefferson College, and later served as president from 1891 to 1897.
In February of 1897, Father Blenk was named rector of the Church of the Holy Name of Mary in Algiers, across the Mississippi River from the New Orleans French Quarter.
On 12 June 1899, Blenk was appointed Bishop of Puerto Rico by Pope Leo XIII. He received his episcopal consecration on the following July 2 .
During his tenure in Puerto Rico, Bishop Blenk established a college and founded several schools and convents. He also renovated the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista for over $12,000.
Blenk was promoted to the seventh Archbishop of New Orleans on 20 April 1906. He received the pallium, a vestment worn by metropolitan bishops, on 24 April 1907.
Archbishop Blenk fostered Catholic schools at all levels, establishing the first Archdiocesan School Board in 1906. Blenk made St. Mary’s Dominican College, New Orleans, the diocesan normal school to train teachers.
In 1910, the 257th Pope, St. Pius X (r. 1903 to 1914) adjusted the ecclesiastical organization of Louisiana, by relocating the Cathedral see from Natchitoches (established on 29 July 1853) to the newly constituted Diocese of Alexandria, Louisiana, on 6 August 1910.
Blenk suffered cardiac problems from his relentless work habits. He died after a heart attack on 20 April 1917. The funeral took place in St. Joseph’s Church on Tulane Avenue, as hurricane damage to the Cathedral had not yet been repaired.
See: Joseph Bernard Code, Dictionary of the American Hierarchy, 1789-1964 (University of Michigan: J. F. Wagner, 1964), available online at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofamer0000jose/page/404/mode/2up?q=%22michael+noa%22Archbishop Placide Louis Chapelle
The future sixth archbishop of New Orleans was born Placide Louis Chapelle, to Jean Pierre and Sophia (née Viala) Chapelle, on 28 August 1842, in Runes, France, in the Diocese of Mende.
6th Archbishop (9th Bishop) of New Orleans
(r. 1 Dec 1897 to d. 9 Aug 1905)
Chapelle lost his mother in 1847, when he was age five, and she died in childbirth. Early discerning an ecclesiastical vocation, Chapelle entered the Grand Séminaire de Mende, in his home diocese. Wishing to serve as a missionary, Chapelle transferred to the Colleagium Angiense Societatis Jesu, a seminary specializing in training priests for the foreign missions in Enghien, Belgium.
After completing a doctorate in theology from St. Mary’s University in Baltimore, Chapelle was ordained a priest two months before his twenty-third birthday, on 28 June 1865, by the Archbishop of Baltimore, Martin John Spalding.
Pope Leo XIII appointed Chapelle Coadjutor Archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, meaning automatic successor, on 21 August 1891, seven days before his fiftieth birthday. He received episcopal consecration to the titular see of Arabissus, on 1 November 1891.
When Archbishop Salpointe retired from Santa Fe, on 7 January 1894, the fifty-one-year-old Chapelle automatically became Archbishop of Santa Fe.
The same year, Chapelle persuaded Saint Katharine Drexel to reopen St. Catherine's Indian School, a boarding school for Native American children in Santa Fe, under the control of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.
After a productive six years in New Mexico, Pope Leo XIII transferred Chapelle to become the Sixth Archbishop of New Orleans, on 1 December 1897. The following year, the lives of Chapelle, and his eventual successor, were diverted by war.
By victory in Spanish American War (1898) the United States acquired Spain's colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean, along with Guam and the Philippines in the Pacific.
Chapelle was fluent in French, Spanish, and English, so Pope Leo XII gave Chapelle multiple appointments simultaneous to New Orleans: Apostolic Delegate to Cuba (16 Sept 1898), Apostolic Delegate to Puerto Rico (11 Oct 1898), and Apostolic Delegate to the Philippines (28 Sept 1899).
Archbishop Chapelle contracted Yellow Fever while bringing Extreme Unction to the afflicted, dying on 9 August 1905, as did the third Bishop of New Orleans, Leo Raymond de Neckere. Chapelle’s remains, like those of De Neckere, were interred in St. Louis Cathedral.Archbishop Francis August Anthony Joseph Janssens
Archbishop Leray was followed as Fifth Archbishop of New Orleans by Francis August Anthony Joseph Janssens. Born to Cornelius John and Josephine Anne (née Dams) Janssens, in Tilburg, Netherlands, on 17 October 1843, Janssens early discerned a vocation to missionary service.
5th Archbishop (8th Bishop) of New Orleans
(r. 7 Aug 1888 to d. 10 Jun 1897)
Janssens studied at the seminary of 's-Hertogenbosch from 1856 until 1866, when he entered the American College at Louvain, Belgium, to offer himself for service in the United States.
Janssens was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, on 21 December 1867.
Pope Leo XIII appointed Janssens fourth Bishop of Natchez, Mississippi, on 18 February 1881.
Seven years later, Janssens was transferred to become Fifth Archbishop of New Orleans, appointed on 7 August 1888, installed on September 16th, and remained for the last nine years of his life.
Archbishop Janssens invited Benedictine Monks from St. Meinrad, Indiana, to open a seminary. The result was St. Joseph Preparatory Seminary (opened 3 September 1891). The monks relocated to Covington, Louisiana, in 1903, where their abbey and St. Joseph Seminary still serve the church.
During his tenure, Janssens convened the fifth Archdiocesan Synod in May 1889, founded more than twenty-five new parochial schools, and established the Catholic Institute for Deaf and Dumb at Chinchuba in 1890.
Janssens died on 10 June 1897 aboard the steamer Creole, bound for New York City, aged fifty-three. His remains were interred in St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans.
See: Annemarie Kasteel, Francis Janssens, 1843-1897: a Dutch-American prelate (Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1992).Archbishop Francis Xavier Leray
The future fourth Archbishop of New Orleans was born in Châteaugiron, Ille-et-Vilaine, France, to René and Marie (née Roncin) Leray, on 20 April 1825, who had him baptized Francis Xavier Leray
4th Archbishop (7th Bishop) of New Orleans
(r. 27 Dec 1883 to d. 23 Sep 1887)
Leray studied at the College of Rennes from 1833 until 1844, without particular ambitions, until hearing an appeal for missionaries to the United States. Accepting the call, he first went to Alabama, where he studied at Spring Hill College in Mobile. When his English was sufficient, he entered St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland.
In 1852, Leray was recruited by Bishop John J. Chanche to become a priest of the Diocese of Natchez, Mississippi. Chance ordained Leray a priest on 19 March 1852.
Immediately appointed pastor in Jackson, Mississippi, Father Leray distinguished himself during Yellow Fever outbreaks in 1853 and 1855. He contracted the disease, but it did not enter the toxic “black vomit” stage, so he survived.
In 1857, Father Leray was transferred to become pastor in Vicksburg, where he raised money to construct the first Catholic Church. He remained at his post bringing Extreme Unction to the dying during the cholera epidemic of 1867. Four years later, he was appointed vicar general, a position he held until the Holy See intervened.
Pope Pius IX appointed Leray as second Bishop of Natchitoches, Louisiana, on 27 November 1876, for which Leray was consecrated in Rennes Cathedral on 22 April 1877.
Leray’s service in Natchitoches was cut short by financial disaster in New Orleans. Two years later, on 23 October 1879, Leray was transferred to assume the positions of Coadjutor Archbishop and Apostolic Administrator of New Orleans, to take away all financial authority from Archbishop Perche, who spent the local church into a nearly $600,000 debt.
When Archbishop Napoléon-Joseph Perché died on 28 December 1883, Leray automatically succeeded him as the third Archbishop of New Orleans.
Leray attended the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in November of 1884, and continued his efforts to relieve New Orleans of its immense debt for the rest of his life.
As his health collapsed, Leray return to visit home in 1887. It was too late. He died in his native Châteaugiron, on 23 September 1887, at age sixty-two.
See: “The Bicentennial of the Archdiocese of New Orleans: A Story of People, Faith, and Hope,” Clarion Herald Bicentennial Supplement (Volume 31, Number 7: 22 April 1993): https://www.thecatholicnewsarchive.org/?a=d&d=cher19930422-01.1.2&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN--------%2FArchbishop Napoleon Joseph Perché
The future third archbishop of New Orleans was born in Angers, France, on 10 January 1805, son of Florent Perche and Marie Jeanne Berthélémi, who named him Napoleon Joseph Perche.
3rd Archbishop (6th Bishop) of New Orleans
(r. 25 May 1870 to d. 27 Dec 1883)
Discerning an ecclesiastical vocation, Perche attended Grand Séminaire, Beaupréau, France, culminating in his priestly ordination on 19 September 1829. After serving in two parishes for eight years, Perche obtained permission to travel to the U.S. missions in the Diocese of Bardstown, Kentucky (antecedent to the present Archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky), in 1837.
In 1842, Perche relocated to New Orleans to serve the larger French speaking population. Father Perche acted as chaplain to the Ursuline sisters, and, at the urging of Archbishop Blanc, established the first Catholic newspaper in Louisiana, the French language Le Propagateur Catholique.
Because of Perche’s learning, eloquence, and popularity, Odin chose him as coadjutor, for which office he was ordained bishop on 1 May 1870. When Odin died on 25 May of the same year, Perche automatically succeeded as Third Archbishop of New Orleans.
Perche inherited an Archdiocese still under military occupation by Federal troops, with an economy crippled by post-Civil War economic depression. He embarked on an astonishing building program, founding four new parishes in New Orleans, plus another twenty-three in towns outside the city. Parallel to this, Perche promoted Catholic education, building sufficient schools to educate eleven-thousand children in its facilities.
Perché borrowed heavily to finance his parish and school expansion, as well as his own personal charity to all left impoverished and homeless by the war. By 1879, he had compiled a debt of $590,925, in a time when a large house in the city could be constructed for $1,000.
Having lost confidence in his judgment, the Holy See transferred the Bishop of Natchitoches, Francis Xavier Leray, to become Coadjutor Archbishop of New Orleans, and Apostolic Administrator on 23 October 1879, taking away all financial authority from Perche.
Perché died in New Orleans on 27 December 1883, at which point Leray automatically followed as fourth Archbishop. Perche’s remains were interred beneath the sanctuary of St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans.
See: Charles E. Nolan, A History of the Archdiocese of New Orleans (Editions du Signe, Strasbourg, France: The Roman Catholic Church of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, 2000).Archbishop Jean-Marie Odin, C.M.
Jean Marie Odin, the future founding Bishop of Galveston, Texas, and 2nd Archbishop of New Orleans, Louisiana, was born on 25 February 1800. He was the seventh of ten children born in Ambierle (Haute-Loire, France) to Jean and Claudine Marie Odin.
2nd Archbishop (5th Bishop) of New Orleans
(15 Feb 1861 to d. 25 May 1870)
Jean-Marie was baptized on the day of his birth, and even in early childhood demonstrated consistent interest in religion. Discerning an ecclesiastical vocation, Odin was accepted into St. Irenaeus Seminary in Lyons, the alma mater of Archbishop Blanc, whom he later succeeded.
While a seminarian at St. Irenaeus, Odin became one of many inspired by Bishop Dubourg to become as missionary priest to the Louisiana Territory.
After arriving in the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, on 11 July 1822, Odin was sent on to continue his priestly formation at St. Mary of the Barrens Seminary, founded in 1818, in Perryville, Missouri. Bishop Dubourg ordained Odin a priest on 4 May 1823.
Odin’s life changed course owing to the future state of Texas declaring its independence from Mexico on 2 March 1836. A decade later (29 Dec 1845), Texas joined the United States, as state twenty-eight, but at the time of independence, the Holy See had to assume it would remain a separate country from either Mexico or the U.S.A.
On 16 July 1841, Pope Gregory XVI elevated Texas to the rank of a Vicariate Apostolic, appointing the forty-one-year-old Odin as the first Vicar Apostolic. He received ordination as bishop with the titular see of Claudiopolis in Isauria on 6 March 1842.
In December of 1845, the Republic of Texas was accepted into the United States as the State of Texas.
Two years later, on 4 May 1847, the 255th Pope Pius IX (r. 1846 to 1878) created the Diocese of Galveston, the first in Texas, naming Odin as founding bishop on May 21st. The new diocese included all of Texas, as well as parts of what is later became Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming; an area of 360,000 square miles, including 20,000 widely scattered Catholics.
At its foundation, the Diocese of Galveston had ten churches, one convent of Ursuline Sisters, and twelve priests. By the end of his tenure, Odin had increased the number of priests to eighty-four, and the number of churches to fifty.
Odin's service in Texas ended 1861, when the Vatican transferred him to succeed the late Archbishop Antoine Blanc, who died on 20 June 1860, as Archbishop of New Orleans.
Pope Pius IX appointed the sixty-year-old Odin as the second archbishop of New Orleans on February 15, 1861. Two months later, the Civil War commenced with Louisiana being one of the Confederate States of America. The city of New Orleans was conquered and occupied by Union troops in May of 1862.
After the war ended in 1865, Odin incorporated the Archdiocese in 1866. He established an English language diocesan newspaper in February of 1868 called The Morning Star.
When Pope Pius X summoned the First Vatican Council in 1869, Odin was in poor health, but attended out of duty. Odin visited his hometown to convalesce. He did not recover, dying in Ambierle (Department of Loire) on 25 May 1870, age seventy.
See: Patrick Foley, Missionary Bishop: Jean-Marie Odin in Galveston and New Orleans (Texas A&M University Press; 2013).Archbishop Antoine “Anthony” Blanc
The fourth bishop, who lived to become the first Archbishop of New Orleans, was born on 11 October 1792 in Sury, near Sury-le-Comtal, then in the Department of Rhône-et-Loire, France, and baptized Antoine Blanc.
1st Archbishop (4th Bishop) of New Orleans
(r. 19 Jun 1835 to d. 20 Jun 1860)
Discerning an ecclesiastical vocation, Blanc entered the local Sulpician minor seminary Saint-Michel de Saint-Étienne in Sury-le-Comtal. He then moved up to the Séminaire Saint-Irénée, the provincial seminary for the Archdiocese of Lyon, France.
Blanc attended seminary alongside: (a) the future Saint Jean-Marie Vianney,(b) Jean-Claude Colin, the future founder of the Society of Mary, and (c) Michael Portier, the future founding Bishop of Mobile, Alabama.
Antoine Blanc was ordained a priest on 22 Jul 1816, three months before his twenty-fourth birthday. His brother, Jean-Baptiste Blanc, was ordained a priest on 24 October 1823, the first man ordained a priest within the present borders of Louisiana, to serve in Louisiana, after it became part of the United States.
Antoine Blanc’s life changed the following year, when the second Bishop of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, Louis William Dubourg, visited Lyon to raise money and recruits. Inspired, Blanc volunteered for the vast Louisiana Territory, joining other recruits.
In December 1831, the third bishop of New Orleans, Bishop De Neckere, appointed Blanc associate vicar-general of the diocese of New Orleans. Bishop De Neckere died in 1833, after contracting Yellow Fever while visiting other victims of the outbreak.
Father Blanc was appointed administrator until being appointed fourth Bishop of New Orleans on 19 Jun 1835. The forty-three-year-old Blanc received episcopal ordination in St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans on 22 November 1835.
On 28 July 1837, the 254th Pope, Gregory XVI (r. 1831 to 1846) elevated the Vicariate Apostolic of Mississippi to the ordinary rank as the Diocese of Natchez, Mississippi. [On 1 March 1977, Natchez ceased being a diocese. Mississippi is now ecclesiastically served by the Diocese of Jackson and the Diocese of Biloxi.]
On 19 July 1850, Pope 255, Blessed Pius IX (r. 1846 to 1878, beatified year 2000), elevated the Diocese of New Orleans to the ranks of a metropolitan province, the Archdiocese of New Orleans, with Blanc as founding archbishop.
Three years later, a second diocese within the present borders of Louisiana was created: The Diocese of Natchitoches, Louisiana, on 29 July 1853. [The diocese was reconstituted as the Diocese of Alexandria, on 6 August 1910, which it remains.]
During Blanc’s twenty-five-year tenure, the number of priests increased from twenty-eight to ninety-two. Blanc established forty-seven new parishes, two colleges, nine academies, a seminary, a Catholic hospital, two orphanages, a home for delinquent girls, and numerous schools staffed by men and women religious recruited from abroad.
Archbishop Blanc died on 20 June 1860. His remains were interred in a crypt under the sanctuary of St. Louis Cathedral.
See: Cross, Crozier, and Crucible: A Volume Celebrating the Bicentennial of a Catholic Diocese in Louisiana, ed. Glen Conrad (published by Archdiocese of New Orleans, 1993).Bishop Leo Raymond de Neckère, C.M.
The third bishop of New Orleans, Leo Raymond De Neckère, C.M., was born in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands on 6 June 1800 in the town of Wevelghem, West Flanders (this is the present Kingdom of Belgi.
3rd Bishop of New Orleans
(r. 4 Aug 1829 to d. 4 Sep 1833)
Discerning an ecclesiastical vocation early in life, De Neckere attended the Klein Seminarie Roeselare, to study classics and philosophy, then major seminary on the Biezekapelstraat, next to St. Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent.
De Neckere’s path was diverted in 1817 by a visit from Bishop William Dubourg, seeking recruits to serve in his vast Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, extending from the Gulf to the Great Lakes, and including the Gulf coast from the Sabine River to the Florida Atlantic coast.
Inspired by Bishop Dubourg’s description of the expansive region, the growing immigrant population, and the desperate need for sacramental service, De Neckere joined Dubourg aboard La Caravanne, departing Bordeaux on 2 June 1817.
De Neckere completed his priestly formation at St. Mary of the Barrens seminary in Missouri. He was ordained a Vincentian priest at age twenty-three by Bishop Dubourg in the seminary chapel on 13 October 1822.
Seven years later, on 4 August 1829, Pope 253, Pius VIII (r. 1829 to 1830) appointed De Neckere to succeed Dubourg, becoming the third Bishop of what was by then renamed the Diocese of New Orleans, in what had officially become the State of Louisiana in 1812.
On 24 June 1830, De Neckere was ordained a bishop in St. Louis Cathedral by another Dubourg recruit, and fellow Vincentian, Joseph Rosati, C.M., founding Bishop of St. Louis, Missouri. Another Dubourg recruit served as co-consecrator, Michael Portier, founding Bishop of Mobile, Alabama. De Neckere was the first bishop of New Orleans ordained in the Cathedral.
Bishop De Neckere persuaded the Sisters of Charity to expand their hospital work in the city. He invited the Sisters of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel to the diocese; they accepted and sailed from La Havre on 8 September 1833.
A wave of Irish immigration increased the New Orleans population, drawn by the promise of work digging the New Basin canal. Bishop De Neckere established St. Patrick’s Parish for the Irish, and they built a simple frame church on Camp Street, which the bishop dedicated on 21 April 1833. It was replaced in 1840 by the magnificent Gothic structure used today.
The bishop’s life was cut short by his zeal for service during a Yellow Fever outbreak. Between 1817 and 1905, forty-one-thousand people died of Yellow Fever in New Orleans alone. Bishop De Neckere contracted the disease while bringing Extreme Unction to the sick, dying on 5 September 1833 at the age of thirty-four. He was the first bishop of New Orleans buried in St. Louis Cathedral.
See: Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, originally published 1988, supplement in 1998. Currently accessible online at: https://www.lahistory.org/resources/dictionary-louisiana-biography/Bishop Louis-Guillaume-Valentin Dubourg, P.S.S.
Louis Guillaume Valentine Dubourg, the eventual 2nd Bishop of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, was born on the French island colony of Saint Dominigue (currently Haiti) on 10 January 1766, and sent to France for his education.
2nd Bishop of Louisiana & the Two Floridas
(r. 18 Sep 1815 to 14 Jan 1826)
Ordained a priest for the Society of Saint Sulpice on 20 March 1790, Father Dubourg joined the growing waves of refugees fleeing the chaos of the French Revolution, which began the previous year, seeking safe haven in the United States.
As a French priest, Father Dubourg was an ideal choice to serve as Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas. The appointment was made on 18 August 1812, one month after the War of 1812 commenced.
Father Dubourg presided in the Ursuline chapel, on the night before the Battle of New Orleans (7th & 8th January 1815), as the women of the city gathered to pray for the troops under the command of General Andrew Jackson who defeated the British army seven miles down the Mississippi River from New Orleans, in Chalmette, Louisiana.
Later in the same year, Dubourg was appointed second Bishop of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, and ordained on 24 September 1815.
Three years later, Bishop DuBourg acquired property for the first seminary in the Louisiana Territory on 31 March 1818, in Perry County, Missouri. The seminary opened in the same year as “St. Mary of the Barrens”. It continues to function at a different location as Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.
During Bishop’s Dubourg’s tenure:
On 30 April 1812, Louisiana was admitted as the eighteenth state of the union. Nine years after the Louisiana Purchase (1803).
The 252nd Pope, Leo XII (r. 1823 to 1829) detached the eastern coastal region to create the Vicariate Apostolic of Alabama and the Floridas, on 29 August 1825.
The following year, on 18 July 1826, the same pope, Leo XII, reconstituted what remained by three actions, all promulgated on the same date:
First, Pope Leo XII created the Diocese of St. Louis, in the present state of Missouri, encompassing all the territory north to the Great Lakes.
Second, Pope Leo XII detached more territory to create the Vicariate Apostolic of Mississippi, encompassing the present state of the same name.
Third, Pope Leo XII changed the name of what remained to the Diocese of New Orleans, encompassing the present states of Louisiana and Arkansas.
Pope Leo XII died in 1829. The next Pope, the 253rd, Pius VIII (r. 31 March 1829 to 30 November 1830), created the Diocese of Mobile on 9 May 1829, out of the Vicariate Apostolic of Alabama and the Floridas.
Amid these changes, the sixty-year-old Bishop Dubourg retired on 14 January 1826 to return to France. His retirement was short-lived.
Eight months after his return, on 20 August 1826, Dubourg was appointed Bishop of Montaubun, France.
Six years later, on 4 March 1833, Dubourg was promoted to Archbishop of Besancon, France, where he remained until his death on 12 December 1833, two months before his sixty-eighth birthday.
See: Annabelle M. Melville, Louis William Dubourg: Bishop of Louisiana and the Floridas, Bishop of Montauban, and Archbishop of Besancon, 1766-1833. 2 vols. (Chicago, Illinois: Loyola University Press, 1986).Sede Vacante
“Sede vacante”, Latin for “the see being vacant,” is the canonical term for the period when a pope or bishops dies, or is transferred from his post, until a successor is appointed. Normally, the Holy See works to keep this to three months or less. However, owing to the Napoleon Wars, and the unjust imprisonment of Popes Pius VI and Pius VII by Napoleon, the diocese of New Orleans remained vacant for fourteen years.
( 1801 to 1805)
During that time, Father Thomas Hassett, the vicar general appointed by Bishop Peñalver, died on 23 April 1804.
Another canon of the cathedral, Rev. Patrick Walsh, sued the lay trustees of St. Louis Cathedral in court to obtain the right to direct operations. He lost, because the articles of incorporation reflected the unique circumstances of the parish foundation by Capuchins who practice corporate as well as individual poverty.
When Father Walsh died on 22 August 1806, the issue remained unresolved, with the cathedral trustees supporting the Spanish Capuchin, Friar Antonio de Sedella, as their priest, known in local history by his Gallicized name: Pere Antoine. They denied bishops use of the cathedral for generations.
New Orleans did not receive a resident bishop again until 1815, after Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo.
See: “Archdiocese of New Orleans Centennial Supplement,” Catholic Action of the South, XVIII, No. 44 (October 5, 1950).Bishop Luis Ignatius Peñalver y Cárdenas
When the 250th Pope, Pius VI (r. 1775 to 1799), created the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas on 25 April 1793, it was part of the Spanish Empire.
1st Bishop of Louisiana & the Two Floridas
(r. 12 Sep 1794 to 20 Jul 1801)
The pope detached the mainland provinces from the Diocese of San Cristobal de la Habana (Cuba), and reconstituted them as a single, new diocese, with a bishop from the original diocese.
The founding Bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas was Luis Ignacio Peñalver y Cárdenas.
Born in Havana, Cuba, on 3 April 1749, Peñalver attended the local Jesuit College of St. Ignatius, leading to his priestly ordination on 4 April 1772 by Bishop Santiago José Hechavarría y Elguesúa.
On 17 June 1794, fourteen months after the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas was created, the forty-five-year-old Peñalver was selected as founding bishop. He received ordination on 26 April 1795, and found 11,000 Catholics in his new diocese.
Bishop Peñalver presided at the first priestly ordination in Louisiana. On 1 April 1797, he ordained a Cuban-born vocation, Juan de Dios Valdes, in what is now referred to as the “Old Ursuline Chapel”, on Chartres Street in New Orleans.
Eight years after his appointment to Louisiana, Bishop Peñalver was promoted to become the sixth Archbishop of Guatemala, then also part of the Spanish Empire, on 20 July 1801.
Archbishop Peñalver served in Guatemala until retiring on 1 March 1806. Returning to Cuba, he devoted the last years of his life to charitable works, until dying in Havana on 17 Jul 1810, at the age of sixty-one.
See: Roger Baudier, The Catholic Church in Louisiana (A.W. Hyatt stationery mfg. Company, Limited: Hope Haven, New Orleans: 1939, reprinted by the Louisiana Library Association, Public Library Section in 1972).By: Rev. Mark S. Raphael, Ph.D.Professor of Ecclesiastical HistoryNotre Dame Seminary (New Orleans, LA)
Updated: 3 November 2025