Comments

1. Thomas A. Martinet says

   December 15, 2017 at 3:06 am

   I am sorry Christophe, but translating the bible is a mistake. Black Americans needs to quit using the religion that was used to keep their ancestors “in line”. And besides, religion, in general, has been the worst thing that man ever invented. It may have served a useful purpose in the past, but in this day and age, it does nothing but hold people back. I fully understand the tradition, but religion is an evil sickness.
   Tom Martinet

   • Christophe Landry, Ph.D. says

     December 15, 2017 at 10:14 pm

     I understand your frustration, skepticism, and distaste, Artie. But as with all social organizations, they come with mixed histories. It was the Roman Catholic Church in Louisiana, which during the colonial period, enforced legal rights to slaves and free people of color. There was no separation of church and state during the colonial era in Louisiana, so Catholic Church laws were also civil law. So, for instance, although there was class separation within Catholic Church services, slaves and free people kissed the same statues, prayed at the same alters, and dipped their hands in the same holy water. It was also under Roman Catholics that, in Louisiana, slaves had the legal right to work on weekends and earn salaries, save money, and use that money to purchase their own freedom from slavery, which is what exponentially grew the free people of color population in the Spanish period. These laws became customs after Louisiana became American, and even then, all Louisiana Creoles baptized their slaves in the Roman Catholic faith, and it was within the context of Roman Catholicism in Louisiana that integrationism persisted, despite American Catholics segregating their churches way back in 1864. They attempted to impose this onto Louisiana Creoles in 1864, and again in 1882, but the French-born Archbishops and his assistants, also born in France, refused, noting that people of color in their care were sufficiently cared for, and wished to receive the sacraments with their other Creole family. Segregation eventually arrived to Louisiana Catholic spaces, beginning in 1918 for the most part, but it was not due to arrangements preferred or decided on from within the Louisiana Creole community. It was a financial and staffing issue, for which Louisiana Creole Catholics relied on American and Irish Catholics for the construction of new churches and schools. The latter who answered the call, only catered to nonwhites, and thus imposed racialized segregation. It was also the Lafayette Diocesan Bishop, Jules JEANMARD, himself a Creole from Breaux Bridge, who, in 1944, excommunicated two white-racialized Creoles for assaulting a white-racialized Creole catechism teacher – she was assaulted because she taught nonwhite Catholics catechism at the same church … in Erath, Vermilion Parish. This same bishop, along with Archbishop RUMMEL of New Orleans, excommunicated other leading racist white-racialized Creoles from the church in that same era, and those same clergymen ran the KKK out of the state in 1921 a few short months after they opened chapters in Creole spaces, and outted its members publicly. Roman Catholicism is far from perfect, but our great people owe an immense debt to this institution in our community for, if nothing else, a sense of humanity and fraternity. For this reason, so many still express faith in the Church. As a consequence, they have the spiritual right to express that faith and devotion in their own community languages, like Kouri-Vini.