THE CHURCH MILITANT

THE CHURCH MILITANT

A Cybercolumn by S.M.B. Miller, Ph.D.*

THE COMFORT ZONE OF WANTING TO LIVE AND DIE FOR G_D**

Recently, Lifetime, the cable television network that bills itself as “television for women” aired a two-hour movie loosely based upon the life of Henriette Delille. The movie was a fictionalized dramatization at best. And so, given that the Sisters of the Holy Family (the order of nuns that Mother Delille founded) are the order of nuns that taught me in my youth, I feel compelled to share part of their founder’s and their story with you all as Black History/Heritage Month begins.

In actuality, this column is the one that I wanted to present to the reading public at first, but I felt a certain level of fear about doing so. First, because the story of the Sisters of the Holy Family is very emotional and personal to me. As a child, I enjoyed their counsel and company. My mother and my maternal grandmother were good friends with several of the nuns when they worked in our parish and at the school that most Black Catholics sent their children to back in my hometown. One nun and my mother were best friends for quite a while; another nun and my maternal grandmother even shared cooking secrets one evening in our kitchen. ( I still remember the absolutely scrumptious meal they prepared: fried catfish, fried chicken, gumbo, sweet potatoes, mustard greens, and cornbread, topped off with sweet potato pie and lemon meringue pie for desert). I also used to be entertained by the stories that my paternal grandmother shared with me about her youth, growing up being taught by many of their number. Secondly, about eight years ago, I learned of the triumph and struggle that Mother Delille and her dear friend Mother Juliette Gaudin experienced through giving Black people and the Church the Sisters of the Holy Family, and I adopted Mother Delille in particular as my patron, because I am an educator. But, hold that thought, because I shall return to that issue momentarily. In any case, I thought it a daunting task as a first topic to attempt to express in some “cybercolumn” an accurate and poignant piece, without sounding too sentimental, and/or too angry, and/or too obsessed about/with the Sisters of the Holy Family. And please note, I say angry NOT AT THE SISTERS, but rather angry about the way that they were once, and still in many ways are treated. Having opted for the alternative topic of the Jubilee year and Black Catholics, and thus having not been sanctioned in any way for having shared those ideas, I now dare to compose the column that I have been avoiding.

Now gentle reader, I am going to ask you to submerge yourself in a time long since past. Imagine yourself like Christopher Reeve’s character in the movie Somewhere in Time, having only a picture of a woman as your guide. The setting is New Orleans, in the early 1800s - 1812 or 1813. You hear several languages: French, Spanish, and English. You see all manner of people: Black, White, Native American, and many people that look like various combinations thereof. You look to your left, and you see a woman, looking like this latter category, clutching an infant, and pulling two other children along through the French Quarter, she yells “Libre’!”, and snatches her hand from the grope of a White man. For our purposes, this woman is Pouponne Dias and the infant is her daughter Henriette (the other two children are Henriette’s older siblings - see Davis, 1990; Detiege, 1976). Dias is but one of hundreds, possibly thousands of women of some African heritage that have fallen into the trap of being concubines to White men, and some men of color who collectively with fair skinned Black women constitute a category of folks known as “passé de blanc” (and yes, it is as it sounds “passing for White”). You see, “race” and “color” in New Orleans are twin strange bedfellows, and in this place, categories exist more akin to “classification” in Latin America or the Caribbean. People of mixed heritage are “mulatto”, “quadroon”, “octoroon”, “brique’”, et. al. Many of these people are free,

and they are collectively known as “libre’ gens de coleur” (free people of color). They form what we social scientists refer to as a “buffer population”. Some of these people own property, and some of this property are slaves - slaves that are of course much more distinguishable as Black.

Women in this category of “libre’ gens de coleur” are relegated to a terrible space for the most part. They are partnered with wealthy White men and some “passé’ de blanc” men at social events called “Quadroon Balls”, although sometimes these arrangements are made in other ways. The most upsetting thing about this is that most of the time, the women’s families make these arrangements. The women are expected to be seen, not heard. They are “kept”, some well, some not so well. Most of all, and most degrading, they are expected to act as breeders for more of their own kind. This is the world that Henriette Delille was born into, and this was the station in life that she was expected and in many ways groomed to fill. But, Henriette wanted more from life.

Thus, she rebelled. As a young teenager (about 14 or 15), she began by helping the sick, poor, and orphaned Blacks and libre’s of New Orleans under the guidance of a lone French nun named Sister Saint Martha Fontier (see Davis, 1990). Together they taught young women of the libre’ class by day, and slaves by night. Eventually, they were joined by Juliette Gaudin, the daughter of Haitian mulattos who had first migrated to Cuba and then to New Orleans, and a French woman named Marie-Jeanne (or Jeanne Marie) Aliquot (see Davis 1990; Lumas 1988).Sister Fontier, however returned to France, and Henriette, Juliette and Marie-Jeanne were left to fend for themselves. Miss Aliquot, as a woman of some means, and the sister of a member of the New Orleans Ursuline community procured a nicer space for the school. Together, the three young women flew in the face of custom and tried to pioneer an interracial order of nuns that they called the Sisters of the Presentation. The year was 1836, it was also in this year that Mother Delille wrote those humbling, yet powerful words, in the form of a prayer that sends shivers throughout my entire being whenever I pray it:

“I believe in G_D, I hope in G_D. I love and want to

live and die for G_D.”

The idea of an order of nuns that was reflective of the demographic reality of New Orleans was rejected by the Church in New Orleans; the primary reason given was that such an organization was forbidden by the laws of Louisiana (the laws of the state forbade Blacks and Whites to live, work, or engage in activities together as equals; this law was strictly observed by the Church, and Blacks (slave or libre’) had to sit in the back of churches at Masses, and had to wait to receive sacraments until White parishioners had received them).

Mother Delille didn’t wither, though. She convinced her dear friend Miss Gaudin to enter a pious union without their friend Miss Aliquot, and resubmitted the petition for the Sisters of the Presentation to become an order of Black nuns. Their chief ally among the clergy, Father Rousselon, however, insisted that they change their proposed name to the Sisters of the Holy Family. They adopted the Rule of St. Augustine, and were finally recognized as a diocesan congregation in 1842. (The Sisters of the Holy Family became a pontifical congregation in 1949 - see Davis 1990). They continued their ministry among the Blacks of New Orleans; their numbers grew. They faced taunts and bewilderment from people of all strata of that “Crescent City”. They would minister to slaves even at the slave market, informing them that the laws of Louisiana required that their owners baptize them. They established the Association of the Holy Family so as to gain the legal right to procure funding, etc. in 1847. They opened an orphanage and a hospice, and taught Black people the catechism. The community worked tirelessly during epidemics, and took public vows in 1852.

The state of Louisiana was one of the first southern states to secede from the Union, and New Orleans, as a port city was viewed as having a strategic position of great geographical importance. Thus, the Union Army and Navy made it one of their key points of battle to occupy it. Soon after the Civil War began, New Orleans was captured and never relinquished. In 1862, New Orleans lost it’s luster in another way, too, because on November 17, 1862, just four days before her beloved Feast of The Presentation, Mother Delille was called home by the G_D she served so well and loved so dearly.

Ten years later, in 1872, the Sisters of the Holy Family were allowed to wear their habits in public, officially. One year later, they established their first mission outside of New Orleans proper, and while it sounds cliché’, since 1873 they have never looked back. Amid turmoil and racism, they spread Mother Delille’s faith and perseverance throughout the Gulf Coast region, westward to parishes and schools in Oklahoma and California, south to Central America, and east to the Caribbean, and back across the Atlantic to Africa.

Whenever I used to visit New Orleans, I made a point of stopping at the site of the Sisters of the Holy Family’s first Motherhouse, the old Orleans Ballroom (purchased by the Sisters in 1881), which is strategically located several doors from the back of St. Louis’ Cathedral. I would always point to the historical marker and have someone take my photo next to the sign. Tourists and natives alike would often stare at me, and I would happily tell them, “These are the nuns that taught me.” I would then proceed to walk through St. Peter’s Alley, along the north wall of St. Louis’, and emerge at it’s front courtyard. I always felt unworthy to walk in their footsteps, but I always felt invigorated in my faith as I took that walk. I would look back at St. Louis’ and then look east towards Jackson Square, and the docks (one of the old sites of the slave auction blocks), and know that Mother Delille and so many other Black women in the Order must have done the same thing...pondering the irony of that majestic Cathedral and the old slave market being so close to one another.

Now, I live in New Orleans. If a Black person ever doubted that the degradation of our ancestors has an impact upon our people today, as the 21st century dawns, all you have to do is come here and observe. Even so, I can tell you this much, the best times I’ve had in the “Big Easy” since I relocated here in August have been with the Sisters of the Holy Family. The first time was a simple phone call, placed to the Motherhouse by the only member of the order that works here at this particular university with me. She let me talk to the Mother Superior, after she explained that I was a former student of the Order from a parish and school that they no longer serve. Mother Superior told me, “Oh yes, child, have Sister bring you out to the Motherhouse anytime. You are one of our daughters.” The second time was right before semester break when I went out to the Sisters of the Holy Family Motherhouse and Novitiate. I visited with my old 6th and 7th grade math teacher (who was also the school principal), and my old 4th grade religion teacher. I lunched with my hostess (whom I am blessed to call a colleague) and two other nuns that I had never met before, in the cafeteria of the Motherhouse. My hostess, introduced me to table after table of nuns. My visit warmed my heart, and melted away my cynicism, if only for those few hours.

I walked the halls and made note of the pictures and biographies of the nuns hanging on the walls. I made a special point to read the caption under Mother Delille’s picture. In essence it said that she was fiery and determined, and filled with faith and action. Imagine, a Black woman that stood up against convention all of her life, a Black woman that shunned the privilege of her phenotype and genotype in a society where light skinned Black people could pass and never be known as Black. I studied this picture long; a Black woman that wouldn’t allow her sexuality and attractiveness to be used as capital in an age where even her mother had given birth to her (and her siblings) under such conditions.

For at least two decades, the Sisters of the Holy Family have been advocating the cause for the Sainthood of Mother Henriette Delille. The Church has finally taken up the issue, after the Archbishop of New Orleans presented the case a few years ago. With all of the problems besieging our young people today, and all of the talk of them being the least academically prepared young people in society, I would think that Black teachers have a “role model”, a patron Saint that has already proven her worth, and that gave Black children education and self-worth in times harder than our own. She also established an order of nuns that have done and continue to do the same. When her people needed nursing, food, clothing and shelter, she found a way to provide for them, and the Sisters of the Holy Family continue to do so on both sides of the Atlantic. I encourage Black educators, especially Black Catholic educators, educators of Black students, Blacks in medicine, and social services, and those who heal and serve Blacks to ask Mother Delille to intercede for us to the G_D triune and triumphant that we give all praises to. Let us repay Mother Delille. And, let the Sisters of the Holy Family know when you see your prayers answered by contacting them at:

Henriette Delille Commission Office

6901 Chef Menteur Highway

New Orleans, LA 70126 - 5290

Fax: 504.241.3957

Email: Sylviathib@aol.com

http://members.aol.com/srdechantl/hfamily/index.html

Let’s MAKE some Black History, and Black Catholic History by ushering in the canonization of a Black Catholic person that was born in the United States of America. Mother Delille only lived to be 50 years old, and yet her original efforts have inspired Black Catholic women for almost 158 years. Unlike the character presented in the teleplay portrayed by Vanessa Williams, here was a woman whose comfort zone was not found by fantasizing about marriage to a White man, rather it was found by serving her people, and wanting to live and die for G_D.

Until the next column, I remain:

S.M.B. Miller

“The Church Militant”

* The ideas expressed in this column are mine and mine alone. If you have any comments, please e-mail me at: smbmille@bellsouth.net.

** References

Davis, Cyprian, O.S.B. 1990. The History of Black Catholics in the United States.

Crossroad. New York.

Detiege, (Sister) Audrey Marie, S.S.F. 1976. Henriette Delille: Free Woman of Color. Sisters of the Holy Family. New Orleans, LA.

Lumas, (Sister) Eva Marie, S.S.S. 1988. “How G_D Has Blessed Us - Our Black Women of Faith”, featured article in In A Word . The Society of the Divine Word - Media Production Center. Bay St. Louis, MS. (Subsidized by The Catholic Church Extension Society. Chicago, IL.)