NEW ORLEANS
NEW ORLEANS
deportation. These were deposited for safe keeping
with the priest of St. Gabriel at Iberville and are now
in the diocesan archives. St. Augustine being re-
turned to Spain by the treaty of peace of 1783, the
King of Spain made efforts to provide for the future
of Catholicism in that ancient province. As many
English people had settled there and in West Florida,
notably at Baton Rouge and Natchez, Charles III ap-
plied to the Irish College for priests to attend the Eng-
lish-speaking population. Accordingly Rev. Michael
O'Reilly and Rev. Thomas Hasset were sent to Flor-
ida. Catholic worship was restored, the city at once
resuming its own old aspect. Rev. William Savage, a
clergyman of great repute, Rev. Michael Lamport, Rev.
Gregory White, Rev. Constantine Makenna, Father
Joseph Denis, and a Franciscan with six fathers of his
order, were sent to labour in Louisiana. They were
distributed through the Natchez and Baton Rouge dis-
tricts, and were the first Irish priests to come to Louis-
iana, the pioneers of a long and noble hne to whom
this archdiocese owes much. In 1787, the Holy See
divided the Diocese of Santiago de Cuba, erected the
Bishopric of St. Christopher of Havana, Louisiana,
and the Floridas, with the Right Rev. Joseph de
Trespalacios of Porto Rico as bishop, and the Right
Rev. Cirilo de Barcelona as auxiliary, with the
special direction of Louisiana and the two Floridas.
Louisiana thus formed a part of the Diocese of Ha-
vana.
Near Fort Natchez the site for a church was pur- chased on April 11, 1788. The earliest incumbent of whom any record was kept was Rev. Francis Len- nan. Most of the people of Natchez were English Protestants or Americans, who had sided with Eng- land. They enjoyed absolute religious freedom, no attempt to proselytize was ever made. On Good Friday, 21 March, 1788, New Orleans was swept by a conflagration in which nine hundred buildings, in- cluding the parish church, with the adjoining convent of the Capuchins, the house of Bishop Cirilo and the Spanish School, were reduced to ashes. From the ruins of the old irregularly built French City rose the stately Spanish City, Old New Orleans, practically unchanged as it exists to-day. Foremost among the public-spirited men of that time was Don Andreas Almonaster y Roxas, of a noble Andalusian family and royal standard bearer for the colony. He had made a great fortune in New Orleans, and at a cost of $50,000 he built and gave to the city the St. Louis Cathedral. He rebuilt the house for the use of the clergy and the Charity Hospital at a cost of $114,000. He also re- built the town hall and the Cabildo, the buildings on either side of the cathedral, the hospital, the boys' school, a chapel for the Ilrsulines, and founded the Leper Hospital.
Klean while rapid assimilation had gone on in Louisiana. Americans began to make their homes in New Orleans and in 1791 the insurrection of San Do- mingo drove there many hundreds of wealthy noble refugees. The archives of the New Orleans Diocese show that the King of Spain petitioned Pope Pius VI on 20 May, 1790, to erect Louisiana and the Floridas uito a separate see, and on April 9, 1793, a decree for the dismemberment of the Diocese of Havana, I<ouisi- ana, and the Provinces of East and West Florida was issued. It provided for the erection of the See of St. Louis of New Orleans, which was to include all the Louisiana Province and the Provinces of East and West Florida. The Bishops of Mexico, Agalopli, Michoacan, and Caracas were to contribute, pro rata, a fund for the support of the Bishop of New Orleans, until such time as the see would be self-sustaining. The decree left the choice of a bishop for the new see to the King of Spain, and he on 2.5 April, 1793, wrote to Bishop Cirilo relieving him of his office of auxil- iary, and directing him to return immediately to Cata- lonia with a salary of one thousand dollars a year,
which the Bishop of Havana was to contribute.
Bishop Cirilo returned to Havana and seems to have
resided with the Hospital Friars, while endeavouring
to obtain his salary, .so that he might return to Europe.
It is not known where Bishop Cirilo died in poverty
and humiliation.
The Right Rev. Lms PeiSalver y Cardenas was ap- pointed first bishop of the new See of Saint Louis of New Orleans. He was a native of Havana, born 3 April, 1719, and had been educated by the Jesuits of his native city, receiving his degree in the university in 1771. He was a priest of irreproachable character, and a skillful director of souls. He was consecrated in the cathedral of Havana in 1793. The St. Louis parish church, now raised to the dignity of a cathe- dral, was dedicated 23 December, 1794. A letter from the king, 14 August, 1794, decreed that its donor, Don Almonaster, was authorized to occupy the most prom- inent seat in the church, second only to that of the viceregal patron, the intendant of the province, and to receive the kiss of peace during the Mass. Don Almonaster died in 1798 and was buried under the al- tar of the Sacred Heart.
Bishop Peiialver arrived in New Orleans, 17 July, 1795. In a rejjort to the king and the Holy See he be- wailed the indifference he found as to the practice of religious duties. He condemned the laxity of morals among the men, and the universal custom of concubin- age among the .slaves. The invasion of many persons not of the faith, and the toleration of the Government in admitting all classes of adventurers for purposes of trade, had brought about disrespect for religion. He deplored the establishment of trading posts, and of a lodge of French Freemasons, which counted among its members city officials, officers of the garri- son, merchants and foreigners. He believed the peo- ple clung to their French traditions. He said that the King of Spain possessed "their bodies but not their souls". He declared that "even the LTrsuline Nuns, from whom good results were obtained in the educa- tion of girls, were so decidedly French in their inclina- tions that they refused to admit Spanish women, who wished to become members of their order and many were in tears because they were obliged to read spirit- ual exercises in Spanish books". It was a gloomy pic- ture he presented : but he set faithfully to work and on 21 December, 1795, called a synod, the first and only one held in the diocese of colonial New Orleans. He also issued a letter of instruction to the clergy de- ploring the fact that many of his flock were more than five hundred leagues away, and how impossible it was to repair at one and the same time to all. He en- joined the pastors to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and in all things to fulfil their duties. This let- ter of instruction bearing his signature is preserved in the archives of the diocese, and, with the call for the synod, forms the only documents signed by the first Bishop of New Orleans.
Bishop Penalver everywhere showed himself active in the cause of educational progress and was a gener- ous benefactor of the poor. He was promoted to the See of Guatemala, 20 July, 1801. Before his depar- ture he appointed, as vicars-general, Rev. Thomas Canon Hasset and Rev. Patrick Walsh, who became officially recognized as "Governors of the Diocese".
Territorially from this ancient see have been erected the Archbishoprics of St. Louis, Cincinnati, St. Paul, Dubuque, and Chicago, and the Bishoprics of .Alexan- dria, Mobile, Natchez, Galveston, San .'\ntonio. Little Rock, St.. Augustine, Kansas City, St. Joseph, Daven- port, Cheyenne, Dallas, Winona, Duluth, Concordia, Omaha, Sioux Falls, Oklahoma, St. Cloud, Bismarck, and Cleveland.
Right Rev. Francis Porro y Peinade, a Franciscan of the Convent of the Holy Apostles, Rome, was ap- pointed to succeed Bishop Penalver. But he never took possession of the^see. Some old chronicles in
