Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, January 27, 1998

Lafayette is hub of church in southwest Louisiana

by Jim Bradshaw

Lafayette is the cathedral city for the Diocese of Lafayette, a center of the faith for a region that numbers more than 300,000 Catholics. Throughout their history, the Acadian people have remained devoutly religious, and that heritage is a part of the reason for the strength of the church here.

But the Lafayette diocese at one time numbered more black Catholics per capita than any other diocese in the United States, and white settlers other than Acadians have also brought the faith with them or embraced the Catholic church here.

Catholicism came to the region with the Acadians. In 1795, Father Bernardo Barriere arrived at the Poste des Attakapas, as St. Martinville was then known, to begin ministry at a tiny chapel that already was there.

Having left his native France because of the French Revolution, Barriere came to America, first landing at Baltimore, where he was greeted by Bishop John Carroll, the first bishop of the Baltimore diocese. As vicar general for Bishop Carroll, Barrier traveled across the south to Louisiana. His journey took him many miles cross- country on foot, down the Mississippi River on flatboats, and to the Acadian colony by pirogue.

Once he was established in St. Martinville, he traveled throughout the Attakapas country, saying Mass, baptizing babies, marrying couples, burying the dead.

In 1821, a longtime friend of Barriere's, Jean Mouton, donated about five acres of his land in present day Lafayette to the church. One year later, Barriere became first pastor of the new parish church, St. Jean du Vermilionville. The church then served all of what is now Lafayette and Vermilion parishes.

Barriere retired two years later and returned to his native Bordeaux. He died only eight days after reaching his birthplace.

The community of Vermilionville grew up around the little church nurtured by Barriere and Mouton. The church soon became the center for community activity, and continued to grow and prosper. But there were troubles, too.

In Vermilionville, the board of trustees of the church, called marguilliers, wanted to have final approval of the church pastor, and their choice was not Father Lawrence Peyretti, who replaced Barriere. The marguilliers threatened to withhold financial support from Peyretti and refused to maintain the church property until they were given final approval.

Peyretti continued his pastorate for 12 years, feuding almost constantly with the trustees. He was replaced by Father Joseph Billion. He faced the same financial difficulties, the same marguilliers recalcitrance, and a man named Bonlacoste.

In 1841, Billion wrote to Bishop Anthony Blanc in New Orleans, "There is a man in the parish whose name is Bonlacoste, acting as private tutor in the house of' Mr. Edmond Mouton, the sheriff. This man had made up his mind to vex me in every way.

"He is a most dangerous man who has caused a great deal of harm to religion. He claims he was as at one time Archbishop of Constantinople, but having recognized religion to be of no use, he unfrocked himself.

"He, whispers in the ears of the people that all the ecclesiastics who come to this country are bad priests, who are under an interdict and suspended; that he knows more than they all."

Poor Father Billion lasted only a year in Vermilionville. He was replaced by a formidable successor, Father Antoine Desire Megret, who proved to be a match for the marguilliers. Father Megret set things straight. He told the trustees that he was not subject to their whim, that his boss was the bishop, and that they could like it or lump it. He started a newspaper back at his detractors, who were using the existing paper to malign him.

In March 1843, Father Megret, wrote to the bishop that "hell seems he let loose." Matters came to a head when local tough guy, hired by the marguilliers, "hurling foul and slanderous insult at him," attacked Father Megret on the street and beat him up. There were other people on the street, but none stopped the beating.

Megret retaliated by refusing to say Sunday Mass in Vermilionville. Instead, he traveled to outlying missions, particularly St. Mary Magdalen in Abbeville. Indeed, he founded the including town and threatened to move there if the Vermilionville trustees did not come around. It is said that after the street assault, Cesaire Mouton, a friend, fearing for Megret's life, gave him two loaded pistols. When Mouton died a few years later, the priest returned the guns to Mouton's son, William, who buried them, still loaded, at his father's feet.

Megret returned to Vermilionville after the marguilliers stubbornly gave in. They signed a formal deed renouncing all rights and privileges to the property of the church and conceded its control to the bishop. The deed was contested later in a lawsuit, but, in 1844, the Louisiana Supreme Court found for the church, effectively ending the 20-year struggle between the laymen and church authorities.

Megret continued as pastor of St. John the Evangelist until 1853, when a yellow fever epidemic raged through the area. It is said that his was the final death caused by that epidemic. He died on Dec. 5.

The parish was then blessed with a succession of beloved pastors, including Father Gustave A. Rouxel, who became Auxiliary Bishop of New Orleans for the area.

Father William Teurlings was a builder priest who became pastor of St. John the Evangelist in 1906 and almost immediately began plans to build a new church, the present-day cathedral. The church was dedicated in 1916.

After the Diocese of Lafayette was established in 1918, and almost 100 years after Jean Mouton's land donation, the church became a cathedral, thus crowning Lafayette's continuing position as the center for the Catholic population in south Louisiana. The original Lafayette diocese also included all of what is now the Diocese of Lake Charles, stretching from the Atchafalaya River on the east to the Sabine River on the west, from the top of St. Landry, Evangeline, Allen, and Beauregard civil parishes on the north, to the Gulf of Mexico on the south.

The formal ceremony of the installation of the first bishop, Jules B. Jeanmard, was held on Dec. 12, 1918.