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The
Church
In
Mississippi
NY HISTORY OF CATHOLICISM in Mississippi must begin with the earliest record of the white man in the State. Hernando De Soto, Catholic explorer sailing under the flag of Spain, reached Mississippi in 1541, bringing with him a dozen priests and religious for the evangelization of the settlers and savage natives. But his enterprise met with disaster, and it was only with the advent of the French under La Salle, 130 years later, that the first recorded Mass in Mississippi was offered on Easter Sunday, 1682, near the present site of Fort Adams.
The period of French colonization is a romance of gigantic struggle and hardships. The few priests and French speaking missionaries supplied by the Seminary of Quebec in Canada wandered from village to village instructing the settlers and Indians. More than one died a martyr’s death at the hands of the savages.
In 1798 the French recognized the U. S. claim to the territory and withdrew, taking with them most of the French priests and some of the few Catholic families, leaving the rest almost spiritually
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destitute. Even the future see city of Natchez did not have a resident pastor when the diocese was erected in 1837.
The first bishop of Mississippi, His Grace John Clanche, S.S., D.D., was installed in 1841. His diocese was composed of the entire State. In it he found 400,000 people, of which only a few scattered families in Natchez, Vicksburg, and the Gulf Coast professed the true faith. His clergy roll contained but two priests, and there was not a church in the diocese. At his death fifteen years later, Mississippi had risen from such humble beginnings to the place where it could boast of the graceful Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows in Natchez, churches in eleven places (including Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian), and an orphanage and girls school conducted by the Daughters of Charity.
The steady growth of the Church in Mississippi since that time was interrupted only by the ravages of the Civil War. Much church property was destroyed and the third bishop of Natchez, Bishop William Henry Elder, was unjustly imprisoned at Vidalia by the Federals for courageously refusing an insulting order of the conquering commander to conduct public prayers for the success of the Northern campaign.
Today, under the very capable and inspiring leadership of its seventh bishop, his excellency, the Most Rev. Richard Oliver Gerow, S.T.D., who will celebrate his 30th anniversary at Natchez this autumn, the diocese has swelled to include 160 priests, 82 of them religious, 58 Brothers, and 354 Sisters; 37 religious orders represented. They administer to a Catholic population of 56,317—about one-fiftieth of Mississippi’s total. Eleven thousand children receive a Christian education and the dependent and infirm are cared for by two orphanages and three hospitals. Sixty-nine parishes and 63 missions dot the State. The two major seminaries in the diocese are both religious. St. Augustine’s in Bay St. Louis is conducted by the Society of the Divine Word (S.V.D.); and Our Lady of the Snows Scholasticate, Pine Hills, just across the Bay from St. Augustine’s, is conducted by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
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