Canonization Cause for Shreveport Martyrs Submitted to Vatican

By Fr. Peter Mangum, Ryan Smith, and Cheryl White, Ph.D.

Bishop Francis Malone has submitted a request to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints at the Vatican for a formal investigation into the sanctity of five priests who were counted among the dead of Shreveport’s Yellow Fever epidemic of 1873. Fr. Isidore Quémerais, Fr. Jean Pierre, Fr. Jean Marie Biler, Fr. Louis Gergaud, and Fr. Francois Le Vézouët, all died between September-October 1873 as martyrs to their charity while caring for the city’s sick and dying. Bishop Malone’s request for the Vatican’s nihil obstat (“nothing in the way”) is the necessary preliminary first step toward sainthood.

In 2018, the Cathedral of St. John Berchmans marked the 145th anniversary of the 1873 Yellow Fever epidemic in Shreveport in a special way, with a series of public presentations, articles in this publication and elsewhere, the development of a serial graphic novel published in English and French, and the production of a limited podcast series entitled No Greater Love: Shreveport 1873, all with the purpose of chronicling their lives. Their sacrifice is well-documented in the earliest histories of the epidemic, and memorialized in the beautiful stained glass windows of Holy Trinity Catholic Church, founded by Fr. Jean Pierre.

The past four years have involved rigorous research into the lives of these priests, initially for the purpose of producing a book-length manuscript, as well as the graphic novel and podcast. In addition to extensive primary research with the French Dioceses of St. Brieuc, Rennes, and Nantes in February 2019, the files of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Notre Dame University, and the Jesuit archives in St. Louis have all been examined, in addition to many smaller private collections and archives. The effort to learn as much as possible about these priests has been exhaustive and comprehensive, ultimately leading to the conclusion that their lives are not merely remarkable, but that they merit consideration as part of the formal Vatican process for the Causes of Saints.

In July 2017, Pope Francis issued an apostolic letter entitled Maiorem hac Dilectionem (No Greater Love), which provides a new way forward for causes of saints, based on the free offering of one’s own life. The request to Bishop Malone was initiated from the belief that these priests not only have historicallydocumented reputations for sanctity, but that their memory fostered popular devotion dating back to the time of their deaths. The request to Bishop Malone was then made in accordance with the published Vatican guidelines.

Honoring their lives through research and writing, and to initiate this formal request process has been a great privilege and undertaking. The decision to open up this inquiry, at a minimum, secures the remembrance of the heroic virtue of these priests as something to be modeled among all Christians. It may indeed open up their pathway to sainthood, a development that will be remarkably historic for this region. “The decision to open up this inquiry, at a minimum, secures the remembrance of the heroic virtue of these priests as something to be modeled among all Christians.”

Please make it your special prayer in this time of pandemic, that the priests who died in the local epidemic of 1873 will soon be recognized as Servants of God.

Pictured above are graves of some of the priests who died in the Yellow Fever epidemic. St. Joseph Cemetery, Shreveport, Louisiana.