Whether you find yourself in New Orleans on a cruise, business travel, or on a family vacation , you will be entering a magical city with a deep Catholic history. The birthplace of musical legends like Louis Armstrong, author Tennessee Williams and celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse, is also home to Our Lady of Prompt Succor and two future saints: the great American missionary, Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, and the Venerable Henriette Delille, the first US born African American on the path to sainthood.
The Big Easy – as New Orleans is often called – is not only the home of Mardi Gras, but also the birthplace of American Jazz and a culinary destination in its own right, from shrimp and catfish to gumbo, jambalaya and the famed beignets. While New Orleans is best known for its landmark French Quarter, it also boasts a number of fascinating museums, such as the National World War II Museum and Mardi Gras World. Another popular spot for families with young children is New Orleans’ 1,300 acre City Park, which is actually 50% larger than New York’s Central Park, complete with botanical gardens, Storyland Park, train rides, carousel gardens and the recently modernized Louisiana Children’s Museum. To kick the vacation up another notch, add in a swamp tour out on the bayou, or ride on a Mississippi River steamship or on one of the old electric street cars that still cross the city.
The Patroness of New Orleans: Our Lady of Prompt Succor
While most travel blogs on New Orleans start and end in the famed French Quarter, I want to begin the journey through Catholic New Orleans in the quiet uptown residential neighborhood bordering Tulane University. It is here, at the National Votive Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, that you encounter the patroness of New Orleans and Louisiana and can quickly appreciate the decisive hand that Our Lady has had in protecting the city of New Orleans. Her feast is honored each year on January 8th and the magnificent crowned wooden statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, which arrived from France in 1810, is enshrined above the altar.
Our Lady of Prompt Succor is unique in that it is the only Marian devotion in the United States that originated in a major American city. The most famous miracle attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of Prompt Succor was the stunning victory of General Andrew Jackson and his troops against the British in the 1815 Battle of New Orleans. The French Quarter was being evacuated on the eve of the expected British bombardment, yet the Ursuline Sisters of New Orleans insisted on remaining in their convent. Prayers to Our Lady of Prompt Succor had previously saved the convent from being destroyed in a devastating fire that swept the French Quarter several years earlier and the Sisters thought they would seek her intercession again to save the city from near certain destruction.
The Ursuline Sisters held an all night prayer vigil seeking Our Lady’s intercession to come to the aid of the American forces in advance of the great battle on January 8th. The Mother Superior made a vow to Our Lady that if General Jackson’s forces prevailed, then an annual mass of thanksgiving would be sung every year in honor of Our Lady of Prompt Succor. At mass the next morning, just prior to Holy Communion, a courier burst into the chapel announcing that General Jackson had prevailed against all odds. The chapel broke out in reciting the Te Deum and to this day, an annual Mass of Thanksgiving to Our Lady of Prompt Succor is offered in memorial of this victory.
The Shrine is a short two mile drive to the popular Audubon Zoo, famous for its alligator swamp in the heart of the city and for its panther exhibit. The Zoo is set inside the river front Audubon Park, surrounded by Tulane University and the Jesuit Loyola University.
The French Quarter and Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, King of France
The heart of New Orleans is Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral. The iconic cathedral with its three steeples rising above the banks of the Mississippi, is aptly named after the great King Louis IX – or St. Louis as he is universally recognized in the Church today – as a recollection of New Orleans unique French origins.
Unlike most of the other historic centers of Catholicism in the United States, the Catholic story in New Orleans does not begin in the Spanish territories of the New World nor with the English refugees who settled on Maryland’s shores. Rather, it begins in Normandy, France, with the first French explorers and missionaries who departed for New France, conquering a vast territory in the name of the King of France and Christ, in a broad arc that swept from French Canada all the way down the Mississippi River Valley to New Orleans. Indeed, the first Catholic missionaries arrived over 300 years ago when the city was founded in 1718 and Christ has been at the center of the city’s history ever since.
St. Louis is the oldest Catholic Cathedral in the US continually in use; a church has stood on this site since 1727. The nave is lined with the flags of the various governments that have ruled over New Orleans – including the French, the Spanish, the Confederate, and the U.S. – and they lead to a beautifully ornate high altar. Here the tabernacle is framed by statues of Sts. Peter and Paul, while representations of the three virtues of faith, hope, and charity are manifest. The stained glass windows – and much of the murals adorning the church – tell the story of St. Louis, King of France. Of course, there are statues throughout of great French saints, including St. Joan of Arc and St. Therese of Lisieux.
The Cathedral sits on the beautifully landscaped and Parisian-style Jackson Square, which was has been the main public square since 1721. The large equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson commemorates his role in the victory of the Battle of New Orleans and is identical to the same statue that sits across from the White House in Lafayette Square. The Square is surrounded by some fascinating museums belonging to the Louisiana State Museum, including the 1850 House, which wonderfully re-creates the high life in New Orleans in the nineteenth century.
There are two other Catholic gems surrounding the Cathedral in the French Quarter on Chartres Street. The first is the Old Ursuline Convent Museum, which was the historic home of the Ursuline Sisters in New Orleans. The history of the Ursulines stretches back to the foundation of the city itself. The Order arrived in 1727 and has been influential in the city’s development ever since. The convent has now been converted into a multi-story museum that tells this fascinating history, including the role that the very first Sisters from France played in creating a sense of community for the first generation of enslaved women and children from Africa, who would gather at the convent daily when their work on plantation was done, for two hours of catechism and fellowship that they would not otherwise have gotten in isolation on the plantations.
Adjoining the museum is St. Mary’s Church. This beautiful and well preserved church was built in the nineteenth century and became a chapel used by the Archbishops of New Orleans and as a parish church for the growing Italian population in the French Quarter.
Central Business District
In the Central Business District, there are many interesting attractions that draw visitors including the National World War II Museum, the Memorial Hall Museum (tracing the Civil War and Confederate era), Mardi Gras World, and the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas. The palm tree lined Canal Street is also a great place to hop on one of the city’s vintage electric streetcars. The district is also where the Mercedes-Benz Superdome is found, the home of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints. The Saints are the only team in pro football named with a religious affiliation, a remarkable recognition of the extent to which the city’s Catholic heritage has defined New Orleans over the centuries. To further reinforce that connection, the announcement of the team was made on the Feast of All Saints.
In the Central Business District, there are two remarkable churches: Immaculate Conception and St. Patrick’s.
The Immaculate Conception church is the Jesuit parish in New Orleans. It has a gleaming sanctuary and its splendor is a reminder of the heavenly rewards that await us. The Jesuit’s history with the city is almost as old as New Orleans itself. The first Jesuit priest arrived in 1720, just two years after the city’s founding, as an emissary of the King of France. Five years later, the Jesuits were entrusted with the responsibility for ministering to the Native population of the entire Louisiana Territory. The French Governor gave the Jesuits a plot of land – known as the “Jesuit Plantation” – just outside of the French Quarter in what is now the business district, including the land on which Immaculate Conception is located today. The Jesuits were expelled from Louisiana in the late eighteenth century when the Pope suppressed the order worldwide. They were eventually invited back to New Orleans in the mid nineteenth century, at which time they re-purchased the property on which this church is built.
St. Patrick’s is the second oldest church in New Orleans and was the first to offer mass in English, rather than French. It is located in what was once known as the “American District” of New Orleans, the English-speaking community across Canal Street from the French Quarter where the Creoles had settled. The cornerstone was laid in 1838 and the motivating vision was for the city’s English speakers to be able to worship in as splendid a church as the Creoles had access to at St. Louis Cathedral. Visitors to the church are particularly struck by the giant murals behind the high altar, depicting scenes of the Transfiguration, Christ walking on water, and St. Patrick baptizing the Irish.
Fauberg Treme
The Treme neighborhood is the long time district where free people of color could buy property in New Orleans and was a cultural mecca in the 19th century; for example, the people of free color were the main opera performers in the city and most French operas would debut here in New Orleans, before moving on to New York or elsewhere. In the twentieth century, it is the neighborhood where Louis Armstrong emerged and jazz was born (as commemorated in Louis Armstrong Park) Treme is home to the oldest Black Catholic Church in the US – St. Augustine – and St. Louis Cemetery #2 is where the Venerable Henriette Delille is buried. Also in this neighborhood is Our Lady of Guadalupe and the International Shrine of St. Jude.
St. Augustine Church was built in 1842 by the free people of color. Many of them were Catholic and they fought to ensure that slaves had access to this church and were given Sundays off from work; a first in the U.S. There were not a lot of places in nineteenth century New Orleans for Blacks to worship, with the Cathedral being somewhat off limits and St. Patrick’s on the other end of town intended for the Irish. St. Augustine is the oldest Black Catholic Church in the US and was the first to have integrated Church attendance between slaves, freed people of color, and whites. Outside the church is a heart-stopping monument, the tomb of the unknown slave, with a giant cross and shackles commemorating the graves of the many unknown slaves scattered across New Orleans.
One of the parishioners of St. Augustine was Venerable Henriette Delille. She is the first native born African American in the U.S. to become venerable on the path to sainthood. She was born a free person of color in New Orleans into a nineteenth century family that served as concubines to wealthy white men of the city. She had a religious conversion in her twenties and went on to establish the Sisters of the Holy Family. She would serve as godmother to children of all backgrounds – free and enslaved – and her Sisters opened the first Catholic home for the elderly in the U.S. Pope Benedict XVI declared her blessed in March 2010.
Venerable Henriette Delille and her sisters provided compassionate care to the poor and the sick during the yellow fever epidemic that struck New Orleans in 1853. This was not the first yellow fever pandemic to strike the city (nor the last). During the earlier epidemic of 1826, a special mortuary chapel had to be built for housing the faithful departed and celebrating their funeral mass, before burying them in the adjoining cemetery. This chapel is still standing today as Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and the International Shrine of St. Jude; it is the oldest church building standing in New Orleans and also the official chapel of both the New Orleans police and fire departments. In addition to the votive candle lined shrine of St. Jude, there is also an indoor Lourdes Grotto, with a number of brinks labelled thank you in multiple languages for answered prayers to Our Lady.
There has been a long devotion to St. Ann, mother of Mary, in New Orleans; one shrine still stands today in the Treme, located at 2101 Ursulines Avenue. The gated shrine includes numerous statues and a large grotto where pilgrims can climb the stairs (often on their knees), following the stations of the Cross, to a crucifix at the top of the grotto. You can learn more about the shrine here. This shrine is not always open to the public and you may have better luck traveling to the suburb of Metaire, where there is a National Shrine to St. Ann inside St. Ann’s church.
Garden District
The Garden District is one of the most picturesque neighborhoods of New Orleans. It was a former plantation along the Mississippi River, now lined with ornate 19th century mansions, cottages and gardens. The nearby Irish Channel neighborhood is home to church of St. Mary’s Assumption, where the National Shrine to Blessed Francis X. Seelos is located. The Shrine holds the remains of this holy Redemptorist priest, whose legacy stretches across much of the northeastern U.S. and who ultimately died while ministering to victims of the Yellow Fever in New Orleans. His remains can be venerated at the shrine and there is also a museum and various artifacts on display. There is also a well curated museum telling the story of his life, along with a number of first class relics.
The church is filled with beautiful stained glass windows and a memorable high altar lined with statuary depicting the coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary rising above the tabernacle. As in any Redemptorist church, there is also a side altar with the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
Blessed Seelos, known as the “cheerful ascetic” (the title of his biography) was a German immigrant to America and only lived to the age of 48. He spent considerable time crisscrossing the U.S. as an itinerant preacher, and he served as a parish priest to the German speaking community in Annapolis, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Detroit and New Orleans. He was ordained in Baltimore and gave missions in over 12 states, in addition to serving as an informal military chaplain during the Civil War. He even went to meet with President Lincoln in 1863 to try and get Redemptorist seminarians exempted from the draft. He preached a mission of trust in God’s redeeming mercy; that with trust in God, there is nothing His mercy will not indulge. In New Orleans, he drew long lines to his confessional, with many emerging to indicate that he could read their minds and hearts. Miracles were attributed to his intercession while he was still alive, and his companions in Maryland even reported seeing him levitating above the altar in prayer, testimony to the deep mystical relationship he had developed. He was only in New Orleans for one year and had prophesied he would only be in New Orleans for one year before dying of yellow fever (along with 3,000 others) in 1867. New Orleans was the last of the houses of the Redemptorists that he had yet to visit, and he indicated that it would be his final resting place right beneath the statue of Mary that he had blessed only months after arriving. He died in the rectory at St Mary’s and is buried beneath that very statue.
Touched by two saints
One final note on Catholic New Orleans. Two canonized saints of the Catholic church have already left an indelible mark on the city. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, the patroness of immigrants, came to the city in 1892 – three years after arriving in New York – to establish a school and orphanage, mostly for poor Italians living in the city. One of those schools – Cabrini High – remains standing to this day in Bayou St. John. Inside is preserved the saint’s bedroom which has been turned into a local shrine.
The other nineteenth century American saint to profoundly impact New Orleans was St. Katherine Drexel. It was here in the Big Easy that she decided to establish Xavier University, the only Catholic historically black college in the United States,. There is a lovely story about how on the day the university officially opened, she shied away from being on stage, but quietly observed the proceedings from a window overlooking the square.
Day Trips from New Orleans
Although there is more than enough to fill a vacation in New Orleans, there are also fascinating day trips to be had. These include journeys out to the bayou to experience the Louisiana swamp, a day trip to the beaches along the Mississippi or Alabama Gulf coasts, a tour the historic Laura Plantation 50 miles east of New Orleans in Vacherie that tell the horrors of the slave trade, or the one hour drive north to the state capital – Baton Rouge – to take in an LSU Tigers football game, experience their phenomenal science museum, or to snap a photo in front of the old castle like state capitol or the modern high rise capitol building (the only capitol building of its kind in the U.S.).
CATHOLIC CONCIERGE 
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