Congregation of The Immaculate Conception - Sisters of The Immaculate Conception (Louisiana)

Sisters of The Immaculate Conception (Louisiana)

Twenty years after Blessed Pope Pius IX's Apostolic Constitution, Ineffabilis Deus, the Archdiocese of New Orleans's second indigenous religious congregation of women was founded, as the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. They were founded in Labadieville, Louisiana, by the French-born Reverend Cyprien Venissat and Miss Adelaide Elvina Vienne. A former school-teacher, she took the Veil (as Mother Mary of the Immaculate Conception, CIC) from the Most Reverend Napoléon-Joseph Perché, on July 11, 1874. (Mother Mary died in 1885, at the age of forty-eight.)

Their beautiful habit consisted of a black tunic and a blue Scapular, in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Community thrived as a much-needed teaching Order among the young in the State of Louisiana. Following the Second Vatican Council, however, the Order's ranks dwindled (as with so many other Communities), and as of October 31, 2012, there were only three living Sisters (Angela, Elizabeth, and Jerome).

In the 2007 film, The Church on Dauphine Street (by Ann Hedreen and Rustin Thompson), their former Motherhouse, the Immaculate Conception Convent, is featured. Built in 1932, it is now the St Gerard Majella Center and Archdiocesan Deaf Ministry. The film traces its restoration following the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina.

Bibliography

• The Catholic Church in Louisiana, by Roger Baudier, New Orleans, 1939.
• Guide to the Catholic Sisterhoods in the United States, edited by Thomas P. McCarthy, CSV, The Catholic University of America Press, 1964. ISBN 0-8132-1312-6
• Spicing Ecclesiastical Gumbo: The Life of Napoleon Joseph Perché, by William Lemuel Greene, Claitor's Publishing Division, 2012. ISBN 1-59804-636-5