B
brotherhrolf
Guest
The issue of ethnic segregation and the Catholic Church in America is of great interest to me. In New Orleans, my Irish ancestors built St. Alphonsus. Directly across the street was the rectory for the Redemptorist priests. Immediately adjacent to the rectory was St. Mary’s built by my German ancestors.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St.Mary’s_Assumption_Church(New_Orleans
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Alphonsus_Church,_New_Orleans
By the 1930s, my family attended either church since the Irish and the Germans began to marry in the first decade of the twentieth century.
The Italians and Sicilians who came to New Orleans had their own parishes as well but there is now an Irish-Italian parade in New Orleans to celebrate St. Patrick and St. Joseph. They came in the 1880s and by the 1960s when I went to Catholic grade and high school, last names were German, Irish, Italian (Sicilian), and, of course, French. We were all Catholic and all contributed to the cultural gumbo which is New Orleans.
That having been said, we all had one thing in common - the Mass in Latin and the fact that ancestral tongues had been abandoned in favor of English. The Vietnamese community in south Louisiana maintains their traditions but the second generation (those born here) speak perfect English and have given us several priests to serve the diocese. New Orleans had a large influx of Cuban refugees in 1960. The historic connections between New Orleans and Cuba were so intense that a “Cuban” community never formed. They simply entered the cultural gumbo.
Since Katrina, we have had a large influx of laborers from Mexico. Our diocese has a good Hispanic ministry but the reality is that the Mexicans are finding that folks from Guatamala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela have been here for years. This is not Texas or the southwest US where the “Anglos” have given fairly good reason to keep an ethnic community. No, the Mexicans are entering into a Catholic cultural gumbo.
Benedictgal, San Antonio is one my favorite cities precisely because of what you describe. I’ve been there several times for conferences. I’ve never made it to the cathedral for Mass but I have been to St. Mary’s.
Let me mention one more thing about so-called “cultural” Masses. In 1964, I entered eighth grade for my Catholic boy’s high school in New Orleans. Eigth grade was not housed on the high school campus but three blocks away at St. Augustine Parish in New Orleans. St. Augustine was the parish of the free black and Creoles de coleur of New Orleans in the Treme’. Their grade school had been closed for years.
Down the street from the church was a funeral parlor from which black jazz musicians were buried. The Brothers would let all three eigth grade classes out when there was a funeral. We would respectfully line the playground fence and watch as the brass band played “Just a closer walk with Thee”. The band did not enter the church then. The Mass was in Latin. St. Augustine prides itself on its “authentic” Jazz Mass…it is a recent invention.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St.Mary’s_Assumption_Church(New_Orleans
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Alphonsus_Church,_New_Orleans
By the 1930s, my family attended either church since the Irish and the Germans began to marry in the first decade of the twentieth century.
The Italians and Sicilians who came to New Orleans had their own parishes as well but there is now an Irish-Italian parade in New Orleans to celebrate St. Patrick and St. Joseph. They came in the 1880s and by the 1960s when I went to Catholic grade and high school, last names were German, Irish, Italian (Sicilian), and, of course, French. We were all Catholic and all contributed to the cultural gumbo which is New Orleans.
That having been said, we all had one thing in common - the Mass in Latin and the fact that ancestral tongues had been abandoned in favor of English. The Vietnamese community in south Louisiana maintains their traditions but the second generation (those born here) speak perfect English and have given us several priests to serve the diocese. New Orleans had a large influx of Cuban refugees in 1960. The historic connections between New Orleans and Cuba were so intense that a “Cuban” community never formed. They simply entered the cultural gumbo.
Since Katrina, we have had a large influx of laborers from Mexico. Our diocese has a good Hispanic ministry but the reality is that the Mexicans are finding that folks from Guatamala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela have been here for years. This is not Texas or the southwest US where the “Anglos” have given fairly good reason to keep an ethnic community. No, the Mexicans are entering into a Catholic cultural gumbo.
Benedictgal, San Antonio is one my favorite cities precisely because of what you describe. I’ve been there several times for conferences. I’ve never made it to the cathedral for Mass but I have been to St. Mary’s.
Let me mention one more thing about so-called “cultural” Masses. In 1964, I entered eighth grade for my Catholic boy’s high school in New Orleans. Eigth grade was not housed on the high school campus but three blocks away at St. Augustine Parish in New Orleans. St. Augustine was the parish of the free black and Creoles de coleur of New Orleans in the Treme’. Their grade school had been closed for years.
Down the street from the church was a funeral parlor from which black jazz musicians were buried. The Brothers would let all three eigth grade classes out when there was a funeral. We would respectfully line the playground fence and watch as the brass band played “Just a closer walk with Thee”. The band did not enter the church then. The Mass was in Latin. St. Augustine prides itself on its “authentic” Jazz Mass…it is a recent invention.