Consultations shape future of New Orleans church after Katrina

Published: 2005-10-19

BATON ROUGE, La. (CNS) -- As everyone in or from south Louisiana understands, Hurricane Katrina changed everything. Just as individuals and businesses are facing epic challenges and difficult decisions -- Should we go or should we stay? Where should we live? Can we rebuild in the same place? -- the Archdiocese of New Orleans faces those same questions about its future church ministry. How many residents will be allowed to return to their neighborhoods and rebuild? How many will even want to return? How many low-income persons will return to their rental homes or apartments? Will that housing even exist? How many churches will be needed to serve the Catholic population, which before Hurricane Katrina numbered 491,000? How many Catholics will live in the archdiocese five or 10 years from now? No one appreciates a challenge more than Edmundite Father Michael Jacques, the head of the New Orleans archdiocesan Council of Deans and pastor of St. Peter Claver Church, a powerhouse inner-city parish with a thriving, cross-city congregation named recently as one of the most outstanding in the country. As head of the deans' council, Father Jacques is driving an accelerated pastoral planning process that will define the Archdiocese of New Orleans over the next century. In the post-Katrina world, the planning process now under way in the archdiocese's 12 deaneries -- or regional grouping of parishes -- is critical and almost impossibly challenging.

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .