Jewels of Southern Catholicism: New Orleans archive documents a vibrant faith and tradition - Catholic Colleges And Universities - Center for the Study of Catholics in the South at Loyola University

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 25, 2002 by Deborah Halter

Not every archive is stuffy. The new Center for the Study of Catholics in the South at Loyola University, New Orleans, offers scholarly research material, but just as important, it preserves the lives of Catholic Southerners for future generations. The center is inviting scholars and the public to help identify and document the vibrant faith and colorful activities unique to Southern Catholic life.

Like what, for instance?

Picture it. Sicily. The Middle Ages. St. Joseph hears the pleas of a famine-plagued community. The famine ends. In gratitude and celebration, the people take the best foods from their harvest and build an altar to their patron saint. They then distribute the food to needy visitors.

A few centuries later, when Sicilians emigrate to the New World, specifically to New Orleans, they take the memory of St. Joseph's mercy with them, along with distinctive Sicilian recipes and a unique tradition of altar-building.

These days, during the week leading up to St. Joseph's Day on March 19, the New Orleans Times Picayune announces when and where the public can view "St. Joseph Altars," constructed and displayed by Sicilian descendents who greet strangers at the front door and invite them into the house to appreciate.

The altars are large, sometimes huge--taking up entire walls of living rooms or even the entire living room itself. The colorful concoctions of popular piety include crusty Italian bread, wine, cakes and cookies, flowers and fruit, candles, and dried vicia fava, beans that symbolize survival. The beans are blessed and given to visitors, or thrown, Mardi Grasstyle, to St. Joseph Day parade spectators. The candies are sometimes kept to light when hurricane season descends with force in September and October.

Like the Italian population in New Orleans itself, nothing about the St. Joseph's Altar is without symbolism and deep meaning for those who carry on the tradition. But wait, there's more.

Picture it (again). Sicily (where else?). 1623. St. Rosalie gazes upon a cholera-plagued crowd and encourages a local woman, Girolama Gatto, to find blessed Rosalie's tomb. Poor Girolama can't find it, but a few months later some townspeople find bones believed to be those of St. Rosalie, place them in a reliquary, and carry them in loving procession through Palermo. The plague stops. In gratitude and celebration, they annually carry Rosalie, or what's left of her, through the streets.

So naturally, when Sicilian emigrants reached New Orleans, the spirit of St. Rosalie, and the tradition of transporting her through the town, was with them. Today, Italian New Orleanians annually hoist a life-sized statue of St. Rosalie on their shoulders and carry her in procession through the crowded streets, where local and tourist traffic stops for the duration. Catholic tourists sit in their cars, trying to figure out which saint they're seeing. Non-Catholic tourists sit gape-mouthed. After nodding their respects, the locals make cell phone calls and straighten their hair in the rearview mirror.

Such jewels sparkle in the crown of Southern Catholicism, whose tradition is made rich not only by Italians, but also by French, Irish, Germans, Canadians, Latin Americans and many other groups. It is these groups and their traditions that the Center for the Study of Catholics in the South, located in the archives of Loyola University New Orleans, hopes to preserve.

"Over 8 million Catholics reside in the South, approximately one-ninth of all Southerners and, similarly, one-ninth of all American Catholics," says center director David Estes. In fact, the number of Catholics as a percentage of the Southern population has nearly tripled in the last three decades. The South is home to large concentrations of African-American, Cajun and Creole Catholics, as well as significant numbers of Catholic immigrants from the Caribbean, Latin America and Vietnam. The Center for the Study of Catholics in the South plans oral history projects that will preserve the experiences of these groups.

The first project was a C-Span broadcast appearance last spring by former Ambassador to the Vatican and former U.S. Congresswoman Lindy Boggs. Titled "A Catholic Woman: Life in Politics and International Affairs," the program featured a seasoned Boggs recounting her childhood on a plantation in New Roads, La., her years as wife of U.S. Congressman Hale Boggs and mother of their children, her four years as ambassador to the Holy See, and her own 17 years in Congress.

Boggs said that many women, for all their belle-ringing, are indeed steel magnolias Empowered by her service on the House Appropriations Committee, she drafted banking legislation making credit accessible to women. At the time, women were required to rely upon a husband's income in applying for loans. When Boggs retired and decided to purchase a condominium, she encountered a bank officer who followed the old guidelines concerning credit for women and demanded additional support documents before granting her a loan. She gently informed the officer of her role in drafting equal-access legislation.