Word: erath
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Louisiana's white Roman Catholics were also up in arms against the idea of mixing with Negro Roman Catholics. At Jesuits Bend they sent away their new priest because he is a Negro (TIME, Oct. 24). At Erath some of them beat up a woman because they thought she was going to teach white and Negro children the catechism at the same time. Last week another rebellion erupted at New Orleans' high-ranking, 109-year-old Jesuit High School...
...tension had been rising for weeks. Among the Louisiana rice marshes and stands of sugar cane around the little (pop. 2,500) town of Erath, 125 miles west of New Orleans, groups of white folks gathered to pass along the latest rumors about the new pastor. Father Labbe was holding catechism classes without the usual row of empty chairs between 650 white and 75 Negro children. He was going to mix the kids all up, people whispered, by putting them in alphabetical order and having them confirmed by the bishop in that order. Father Labbe, it seemed...
There were mass meetings among Erath's citizens, almost all of them parishioners of Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Church. A group went to complain to Bishop Jules Benjamin Jeanmard of Lafayette, La. Negro children were warned to stay away from catechism classes. Finally Father Labbe suspended the classes altogether...
Back from a meeting of Roman Catholic bishops in Washington came Bishop Jeanmard and took drastic action. To Erath he dispatched a monsignor to read a letter of excommunication at all Sunday Masses of Our Lady of Lourdes. No individual was named, but those who had caused "a scandal to the church, a scandal to the community" by committing violence against Teacher Ortemon were denied the Sacraments, participation in the Church's prayers, and Christian burial? until they repented...