The Sisters of the Holy Family have been part of the fabric of every Black Catholic who grew up in New Orleans. From the beginning, it was evident that they were extraordinary women. As part of our religious community they had a strong voice in our moral training. As educators they determined how we dressed, monitored our decorum and judged our spiritual integrity. They could do this because they shared our background and knew what was required to excel in an unforgiving society. The Holy Family nuns taught us how to be strong when faced with adversity. They were our first evangelical teachers in a city plagued by the immorality of slavery.

It is appropriate that the order is named Holy Family because in our community, they have exhibited many aspects of familial love. Indeed one of the most profound writings of Henriette Delille, the founder of the Holy Family Order, is based on love. According to religious scholar Fr. Cyprian Davis in his book, “Henriette Delille, Servant of Slaves, Witness to the Poor,” he reveals that on May 2, 1836, Henriette had an intense religious experience. At this passionate moment, she developed a set of rules and regulations for devout Christian females. She wrote of her Eucharistic devotion, “I believe in God. I hope in God. I love. I wish to live and die for God.” These small but powerful words reveal her profound profession of love.

Today, the Holy Family Order is working and praying hard toward Mother Henriette’s cause for beatification and canonization. They are raising money for an exhibit and plan to re-open a museum documenting their history. The exhibit will open at the New Orleans African-American Museum of Art, Culture and History from April 30 until Aug. 17 There is a mass planned for April 26 at 4:00 p.m. at their chapel to honor Mother Henriette Delille, thank God for their sisters, and give a blessing for their exhibit.

Henriette Delille was born in 1812. This was the same year that Louisiana became America’s 18th state. She was the great, great-granddaughter of Nanette, a freed slave and a wealthy French plantation owner named Claude Joseph Villars Dubreuil. Nanette managed to purchase freedom for her daughter Cecile and her grandchildren named Henriette and Narcisse. Henriette Delille’s grandmother Cecile invested in real estate and owned houses on Orleans and St. Peter Streets. During the Spanish rule, slave owners could manumit slaves without the permission of the government. Slaves had the right to purchase their own freedom, buy property or obtain a loan to buy the freedom of other slaves. This period resulted in an increase in the population of free people of color, “les gens de couleur libres.”

By the end of the 18th century, free Blacks were highly educated, owned property and enjoyed occupations such as skilled laborers, shopkeepers, shoemakers and seamstresses. In his book, Father Davis asserts that many free Black women acquired slaves as helpers for their own domestic needs. They also hired them out as servants and oftentimes bought and resold them for profit.

When Henriette began her ministry, the New Orleans population in 1840 numbered 23,448 slaves, 19,226 free Blacks and 59,519 whites. Henriette Delille’s family was descended from the free populace.

In 1836 Henriette Delille organized the first religious community for devout free women of color in Louisiana. They were called the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin. Their board was composed of a director, president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer and vice-treasurer. The sisters and laypersons of this society were called upon to teach religious principles and the most important points of Christian morality. Sanctioned by the church, their main purpose was to care for slaves, the sick, and the poor.

At 24, Henriette had already begun her apostolic ministry as baptismal sponsor and witness for slaves. There are numerous recordings of this in archival records at the Saint Louis Cathedral. This religious undertaking was marked by a time of tenuous relationships between free persons of color, slaves and whites. Pre-Civil War, New Orleans had a history of integrated churches. In one of his strolls through the city in 1819, chronicler Benjamin Henry Latrobe noted that at least half of the women attending mass at St. Louis Cathedral were "colored."

Henriette Delille and other Holy Family sisters were not the first Black women to start a religious order. By the first quarter of the 19th century, several women sought the religious life. However, the first successful foundation for Black religious females was the foundation of Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore in 1829. It was not until 10 years later that Henriette and her small group of New Orleans sisters began ministering to slaves and free people of color. At the beginning, their work was barely noticeable in a bohemian city that was fraught with sin and decadence.

The city was burdened by a system in which French or Spanish men entered into the equivalent of a common-law marriage with free women of color. Many of these unions were based on mutual love while others were for convenience. This created a moral dilemma for many Catholics who were unable to reconcile this duplicity regarding the sacrament of matrimony. As free women of color, Henriette and her peers undoubtedly were impacted by this double-standard. This system was called placage which derives from the French word placer meaning “to place with”. The free women of color involved were known as placées.

In spite of numerous challenges, Mother Henriette Delille founded the Order of the Sisters of the Holy Family on November 21, 1842 along with Sisters Juliette Gaudin and Josephine Charles. Father Etienne Rousselon (1800-66) was their mentor, supporter and co-founder. He also served as chaplain to the Ursuline nuns. According to the book “No Cross, No Crown, Black Nuns in 19th Century New Orleans,” edited by Virginia Meacham Gould and Charles E. Nolan, the diary of Sister Mary Bernard Diggs indicates that the first sisters came together in community in a house on St. Bernard Street. They waited approximately 18 months for Father Rousselon to construct a house to be built near St. Claude and Bayou Road.

The first decade brought sacrifice, famine and anguish but the little order of a few nuns persevered. According to Sister Diggs’ diary, many times the nuns went without anything to eat except cold hominy that had been left from some wealthy family’s table. It was clear that these nuns depended on the charity of others for survival. From the beginning the sisters took in orphans and boarders. They taught school, cared for the sick and prepared adults and children for their first communion sacraments. They did all of this in addition to supporting the needs of distressed, abandoned and enslaved.

By 1847 the apostolate of the three sisters was supported by an association of men and women incorporated as the Association de la Sainte Famille. Their mission was for the relief of infirm and indigent persons. They eventually acquired a building that was known as Hospice de la Societe de la Sainte Famille. Through legal incorporation and fundraising, they erected the building on two lots situated on St. Bernard between Plauche and Villere streets. The hospice was blessed on June 10, 1849.

When Henriette’s mother Josephine died in 1848, she inherited the sum of $1,200. With these funds and borrowed money, Henriette made arrangements for the purchase of property on Bayou Road. In his study of Henriette, Father Davis states that Henriette declared this transaction to be solely for the purpose of establishing an institution for the religious education according to Catholic doctrine for persons of color. This action ensured the education of students and also marked the house on Bayou Road as the location of The Sisters of the Holy Family.

The sisters endured some of the city’s most difficult times. In 1853, 10,000 residents died from a yellow fever epidemic. The Dred Scott Decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1857 declared that people of African descent were “regarded as beings of an inferior order” with “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” This declaration made it difficult for free people of color to obtain many of their former rights and privileges. The Civil War and post war presented grim circumstances for their order. Freed slaves poured into the city, adding themselves to the already over burdened mission. Estimates put the number of slaves at about 10,000.

Mother Henriette Delille died on November 17, 1862. Her death went unrecorded in municipal records. She was 50 year old and the cause of death was thought to be tuberculosis. Her funeral was held at St. Augustine’s church and was well attended. Father Davis writes that according to the Catholic newspaper, Le Propagateur, “She was identified as the founder of the House of the Holy Family. It was noted that she had established her work about a dozen years before, about 1850.” Henriette was buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 2. At her death she was known as one “who for the love of Jesus Christ had made herself the humble servant of slaves.”

Over time, Henriette’s goal to provide religious education to slaves and free people of color was realized through the hard work and dedication of her successors. Since 1842, the Sisters of the Holy Family has continued her legacy of love by serving youth, elderly and needy members of society in Louisiana, Texas, Washington D.C., Tennessee, Belize, Central America, Benin City and Nigeria, West Africa.

Mother Henriette Delille is the first U.S. native-born African American religious leader whose cause for canonization was officially opened by the Catholic Church. Her cause was initiated by former Archbishop Philip M. Hannan at the request of Mother Rose de Lima Hazeur in 1988. Her biographer, Rev. Cyprian Davis, author and religious scholar on Black Catholics, wrote a historical documentation of her life. Already there is a documented miracle of healing attributed to her intersession. Dr. Andrea Ambrosi is the official postulator of Mother Henriette’s cause. Within their next few months, the final version of her life, work and virtues will be presented by Archbishop Hughes to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, then finally to Pope Benedict XVI. If approved, Mother Henriette Delille may be eligible for beatification, which is the second stage in the process of canonization.

One of Mother Henriette’s biggest supporters for canonization is Rev. Msgr. Crosby W. Kern, rector of St. Louis Cathedral. He commissioned a beautiful “Prayer Room” at the cathedral in her honor. It is situated in the rear of the church where most likely the slaves were baptized. The serene room is resplendent with colorful stained glass windows in Henriette’s likeness. It also includes a kneeler, a small altar and a plaque. Local artist Ruth Goliwas designed the altar and stained glass windows. This peaceful room is open to the public for prayer and meditation.

Monsignor Kern views Henriette’s work and the mission of the Holy Family as our local gift to the universal church.

“She is our native daughter who lived among us," he says. "They are already familiar with her work in Rome. The Holy Father has taken a personal interest in her.”
Msgr. Kern is ecstatic that her cause for canonization is endorsed by all of the American Bishops.

As young novices, Holy Family nuns Sister Eva Regina Martin and Sister Doris Goudeaux had not heard much about Henriette’s work. If it were not for the attention of the late Sister Audrey Marie Detiege, Henriette’s life and sacrifice may have gone unnoticed.

“She was our historian,” says Sister Eva Regina. “Sister Audrey saw what was lacking about making Henriette known. People didn’t realize that not only did she work with the slaves and elderly, people would bring their children to her when they couldn’t care for them.”

Sister Doris Goudeaux and her family have a special relationship with Mother Henriette Delille. It was her four-year old niece who allegedly was miraculously cured of a life threatening infection. At the hospital the family held a vigil and prayed for Henriette’s intervention. Doctors had advised the child’s parents that because the illness was so severe, their daughter might either become a vegetable or be brain dead. After an overnight vigil of prayers to Henriette, the child’s condition improved to the amazement of her doctors. After doctors removed a tube from her chest, the hole mysteriously closed overnight. All medical records and testimony by her physicians have been submitted to Rome for authentication of this alleged miracle.

For more information about Henriette’s cause please contact 504-241-9774 or send an email to delillecomoff@yahoo.com.