A Look Back: "Cross Country"

Saints Peter and Paul Holy Apostles Church and Rectory, Carmel (Bayou Pierre), 1890. Courtesy of Upper German Province, Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany.

This feature provides a brief look at the early history of Catholic churches in north Louisiana. Story first printed in the Catholic Connection, August 1998, was written by Father John-Benedict Weber, O.Carm.

In response to the need to serve the Catholics of north Louisiana, the Diocese of Natchitoches was established in 1853. The first new parish in the diocese was the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, Holy Apostles, founded in 1855 along Bayou Pierre in DeSoto Parish. By 1856 the pastor, Father Jean Pierre, had built a frame church and log cabin rectory.

Father Pierre moved on to Shreveport to establish Holy Trinity Church. His assistant, Father Thomas Rebours, continued to reside at Holy Apostles until 1858 when a new pastor, Father Jean Malassagne, was named. The story is told that Father Malassagne died three years later when the river bank collapsed as he walked along it reading his prayer book. For 12 years after his death, there was no priest in residence at Holy Apostles and Mass was offered about once a month by a priest from Shreveport or Campti.

In 1873 two French Benedictine monks moved there hoping to establish a monastery, but by 1875 they had withdrawn to Oklahoma. Again the care of Holy Apostles fell to the priests at Shreveport. Beginning in 1888 the church of the Holy Apostles was offered to German Carmelite friars from west Texas who planned to establish their headquarters at Bayou Pierre.

The Carmelites expanded the parish’s outreach through numerous mission chapels and recruited dozens of German Catholic families as immigrants to Bayou Pierre, which they renamed Carmel. Because of internal problems, the Carmelites withdrew from the area by 1898. One of the friars, Father Marianus Nyssen secularized and remained at the church until 1904.

In November of that year a fire destroyed the church, rectory, monastery, school and sacramental records at Carmel. Dependent on visiting priests after 1904, Holy Apostles was reduced to a mission chapel in 1908, with the new church named Immaculate Conception. This brought to a close the 53 year-old parish of Saints Peter and Paul, Holy Apostles.

Fr. John-Benedict Weber, O.Carm.

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