Storied Church May Be Victim of Katrina

St. Augustine, Founded in 1841, Is Called Vital Link to Culture of New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS -- Parishioners at one of the nation's oldest African American Catholic churches may have celebrated their last Mass as a parish last Sunday, even as they continued their efforts this week to keep the doors open at St. Augustine.

The church, in the Treme neighborhood near the French Quarter, is a center of racial harmony and great jazz, playing a central role in New Orleans history and culture. With so much of the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina, local residents are rallying behind the church and hoping the parish can be saved.

"The people of New Orleans have lost so much; we don't want to lose this," said Sandra Gordon, 52, a church volunteer who has been coming to St. Augustine since 1965, when Hurricane Betsy destroyed her former church.

In the face of a much-reduced city population and physical damage to many churches post-Katrina, the Archdiocese of New Orleans is closing seven parishes and delaying the reopening of 23 churches. Attendance at St. Augustine, down to fewer than 200 people pre-Katrina, increased significantly afterward. But archdiocese officials said current attendance is not enough.

The church sustained about half a million dollars' worth of damage to the roof and bell tower from Katrina, and it was already hurting for money for a needed renovation.

Like New Orleans itself, St. Augustine is an eclectic mix of the ancient and the contemporary, black and white, song and dance. The church was built in 1841 by slaves and by Italian and French immigrants.

It was one of the first churches where slaves, free blacks and whites worshiped together. After a period as a segregated white church and then a black church, it has had an interracial congregation and services that blend elements of Catholicism with African spirituality and homegrown New Orleans culture. Portraits of the African American "Mardi Gras Indians" are displayed side by side with saints on the walls, and the church is known for popular jazz masses and jazz funerals, including an annual "Louis Armstrong Jazz Mass."

Archdiocese spokesman William Maestri said the 250 parishioners registered at St. Augustine will have access to more classes and social services by joining the 8,000-member parish at St. Peter Claver, another Catholic church a few blocks from St. Augustine with a predominantly African American congregation.

He said St. Augustine's parish was recommended for closure in a 1999 study: "We've kept the parish open and subsidized it long beyond the recommendation."

The church would still remain open for weddings, funerals and weekly Masses. But parish priest Jerome LeDoux, a beloved local figure, would no longer minister there.

St. Augustine members said they would miss LeDoux, 76, an African American vegan musician who speaks several languages and has charmed visitors from around the world with his energetic, multicultural services.

"You can't overstate how important St. Augustine's and Father LeDoux are to the African and Creole tradition of the city," said Morgan Clevenger, former executive director of the New Orleans Jazz Legacy Foundation. "Father LeDoux has always acknowledged the black Indians, the social pleasure clubs, the jazz of New Orleans. He acknowledged the spirituality of African people before Catholicism. The loss of Father LeDoux would be a grave loss to the community."

Economist Jacques Morial said the archdiocese should keep subsidizing the parish based on its historical and cultural importance. He is the brother of former mayor Marc Morial, and their family goes back nine generations in New Orleans.

"We need the archdiocese to reconnect itself to the souls and lives of people who need it most, not just the people who have money," Jacques Morial said.