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October
3, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 17Oakland,
CA
POST-KATRINA
•Catholic priest killed in Hurricane Katrina
•New Orleans Archdiocese to lay off employees
•New Orleans faces months as virtually childless city
•Baton Rouge Catholic schools jump 25 percent
•Cemetery conference cancels entertainment
•Jesuits assess damage, offer care in shelters
Catholic priest
killed
in Hurricane Katrina
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) – Like a loyal ship’s captain, “Father
Red” rode out hurricanes for decades at his tiny Catholic church
in Louisiana. But he became a drowning victim of Hurricane Katrina.
Father Arthur “Red” Ginart’s body was recovered near
St. Nicholas of Myra Church, where he served as pastor for 28 years. On
a recent routine visit to St. Nicholas, Father Ginart told Bishop Roger
Morin that he would never leave his beloved church during a storm. The
pastor told his superior, “I never want to be moved from here. I
want to stay here until I either retire or die,” the bishop said.
Father Ginart “used to pride himself on never having evacuated,
and he used to tell people he never would,” Bishop Morin said.
New Orleans Archdiocese
to lay off employees
NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The Archdiocese of New Orleans, which was hit
by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, said Sept. 26 that it will lay off a yet-to-be
determined number of workers over the coming weeks.
In a news release, the archdiocese said it is trying to determine how
to best utilize diminished resources.
All employees were asked to report by Oct. 3. At that time, workers will
learn if jobs are available, said Father William Maestri, the archdiocese
spokesman. If jobs are not available, workers will be given two weeks
of pay and the chance to apply for jobs outside the archdiocese, the priest
said. Father Maestri said he did not know how many of the archdiocese’s
9,000 workers would be laid off.
New Orleans faces
months as virtually childless city
NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Even after the latest hurricane crisis eases
and downtown businesses along with French Quarter bars reopen, life in
New Orleans will be far from normal. Among the somber distinctions: For
months to come this will be an almost childless city.
Dozens of schools were irreparably damaged by Hurricane Katrina, and only
a handful are expected to open before January. Few day-care centers will
be available for preschoolers, and health experts warn that children are
at extra risk of contamination if they come back before the city is thoroughly
cleaned of the foul floodwater’s residue.
Until families are able to return, a whole sector of the economy will
be in limbo – not only childcare workers and teachers, but also
pediatricians, owners of child-oriented stores and others. Numerous New
Orleans teachers, faced with payroll problems and no work in their home
city, are getting hired elsewhere.
Baton Rouge Catholic
schools jump 25 percent
WASHINGTON – Since Hurricane Katrina, Catholic school enrollment
has increased by more than 25 percent in the Diocese of Baton Rouge and
more than 26 percent in the neighboring Diocese of Shreveport, Louisiana.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans has relocated some of its teachers to Baton
Rouge Catholic schools that are accommodating the evacuees with double
schedules, one group attending in the late afternoon and evening and the
other in the morning and afternoon.
Although archdiocesan schools in two parishes less affected by the storm
have reopened, others will remain closed for the entire 2005-2006 school
year, officials announced. Schools that remain open have agreed to register
as many displaced students as possible.
Cemetery conference
cancels entertainment
DES PLAINES, IL – The Catholic Cemetery Conference announced that
it has canceled entertainment scheduled for its annual convention banquet
this month in order to free up funds for Hurricane Katrina relief. CCC
is also working with cemetery managers to coordinate recovery teams and
help in the burial of victims.
Jesuits assess
damage, offer care in shelters
JESUIT USA NEWS – The Jesuit order was assessing damage to churches
and schools in the wake of the hurricane, relocating students and teachers
to other Jesuit institutions and providing pastoral care to evacuees in
shelters. Father Jim Deshotels, a nurse practitioner, spent the first
week after the storm caring for evacuees in the Superdome.
The New Orleans Province determined that Jesuit high school and the provincial
office building were badly flooded but Loyola University suffered only
minor tree damage. Students from New Orleans Jesuit schools have been
welcomed at other Jesuit institutions throughout the U.S. Loyola students
are expected to return to New Orleans for the spring semester.
New Orleans without Ursuline Sisters
NEW ORLEANS – On Sept. 25, the Ursuline Sisters
of New Orleans left the city. It was the community’s first departure
in 278 years. For a week following Hurricane Katrina, the Sisters had
lived in a school surrounded by water. What ultimately motivated them
to leave were reports that it would be weeks or months before power, plumbing
and services could be restored.
Ten nuns and 21 lay people, ages 4 to 94, had spent a week sleeping, eating
and praying in the darkened halls of the 93-year-old Ursuline Academy
in uptown New Orleans, a few miles from the French quarter, according
to a story in the St. Petersburg Times Online.
Classes had started for the 750-student school on Aug. 22, so the kitchen
was well stocked with food and water. Gas lines were intact. In the end,
the Sisters decided it was time to go. They traveled to Baton Rouge, and
from there, were to go to Texas, Illinois, and to La Place, not far from
New Orleans.
The Ursulines first came to New Orleans from France in 1727, with a mission
to educate enslaved women and girls.
Their original French Quarter convent was famously spared the wrath of
the 1794 Second Great Fire, which destroyed 212 buildings. The story goes
that as the flames neared their convent on Friday, Dec. 8, 1794, the nuns
prayed furiously to Our Lady of Prompt Soccor, and the wind suddenly shifted.
Xavier University
suffers severe damage
NEW ORLEANS – Administrators at Xavier and Dillard Universities
are hoping to be able to hold some kind of a spring semester, but they
are up against major hurdles.
Tiny endowments, limited resources and students who are almost all
dependent on financial aid are making it extremely difficult for the two
schools to get back on their feet. Xavier and Dillard suffered far worse
damage than Tulane and Loyola, their wealthier counterparts who were on
higher ground.
Dillard is considering holding a spring semester away from its home campus
and Xavier is working on partnerships with Tulane and Loyola to use classroom
space there or enroll students in courses at those campuses, in case its
own campus isn’t ready to open by Jan. 4.
Xavier says it needs $70 to $90 million in aid to make repairs. “I
don’t have an endowment I can take money from,” said Dr. Norman
Francis, Xavier’s president.
“If I can’t recover the money we expected for the first semester
to pay faculty and staff and pay our bills, we’re standing here
naked. We have nothing. And what we are looking here now is the help we
need so we won’t be severely crippled in our ability to come back,”
he told Peter Applebome, a New York Times reporter.
Dillard and Xavier are both small private universities with almost 6,000
students between them. They each have about $50 million, almost all of
it restricted to designate purposes.
On the other hand, Tulane’s endowment is about $745 million.
Xavier is the nation’s only historically black Catholic university
and is a remarkably successful generator of black doctors, pharmacists
and scientists.
