NEWS FEATURE: Mary, as African Blessed Mother, signals change for New Orleans church

c. 1999 Religion News Service NEW ORLEANS _ To a 74-year-old church built by and for Catholic African-Americans during the Jazz Age, yet adorned with white images of Jesus, Mary and the saints who seem drawn from feudal Europe, an African Blessed Mother has come _ Mary”Our Mother of Africa.” The 4 1/2-foot-high statue depicting […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

NEW ORLEANS _ To a 74-year-old church built by and for Catholic African-Americans during the Jazz Age, yet adorned with white images of Jesus, Mary and the saints who seem drawn from feudal Europe, an African Blessed Mother has come _ Mary”Our Mother of Africa.” The 4 1/2-foot-high statue depicting Mary the mother of Jesus as an African woman, and her son as an African child, was installed recently at Holy Ghost church in a side altar and draped with kente cloth and other African trappings.

She is by no means the first Africanized Mary in a New Orleans church. Several, notably St. Mary of the Angels, are heavily decorated with African images of many biblical figures.


But this is apparently the first representation of Mary under that important title in New Orleans, and another example of black Catholics’ willingness _ stronger in some places than others _ to retool white religious images into figures in which they can see themselves, as white people have always done with religious figures and symbols.

In Catholic culture, paintings, stained glass windows, statuary and other images are not worshipped but provide aids to help focus devotion. And Catholic belief about Mary venerates her in many roles, or titles _ intercessor with Jesus, protector, mother _ often with different depictions that have become standardized for each title, said the Rev. Clarence Menard of Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans.

Many of those historic images are white. But not all, said Menard.

Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, who Catholics regard as patroness of all the Americas, is depicted as a dark-skinned Indian woman, precisely as a 16th-century peasant claimed he saw her in what the Catholic church has accepted as a miraculous appearance near Mexico City, said Menard.

Ordinarily, devotions to Mary spring from specific events like the Guadalupe apparition, or from grass roots popular belief which the official church eventually accepts and encourages, like many New Orleanians’ devotion to Our Lady of Prompt Succor _ Mary as a protector from hurricanes, said Menard.

But Mary as Our Mother of Africa springs not from an event, but from the desire by America’s 14 black bishops to see some African representation of Mary included among many devotions to her in a national shrine dedicated to Mary _ the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington.

The national shrine contains small chapels honoring Mary as Queen of Ireland, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Czestochowa, among others _ the last two Latin and Polish devotions, respectively.

Almost 10 years ago, black bishops, working with the National Black Catholic Congress, agreed on portraying Mary as Mother of Africa and created a small chapel within the basilica honoring her under that title.


The bishops and other supporters commissioned a statue and other African-centered artwork to outfit the chapel. At its dedication in 1997, a guest, the Rev. Michel Boutot, pastor of Holy Ghost, liked what he saw and began to think about installing a similar shrine in New Orleans.

Two years later, the work is done.

For Boutot, a French-Canadian priest who worked in Harlem before coming to New Orleans, the image is a powerful tool to connect the faith with African- Americans, many of whom worship in churches studded with European images of Jesus, Mary and the saints.

And, noting the rapid growth of successful African-American Protestant churches, he said he believes leaders in black parishes have to consciously retool devotions to make them more accessible to black worshippers.

Still, he said, change is tricky, especially to older parishioners, even if it seems so obviously correct to younger eyes. “We are beginning to attract more and more young people, but this is still very much a parish of elders,”he said. And, Boutot acknowledged,”there is a certain amount of rolling of the eyes”as he shepherds in changes such as more uptempo African-American rhythms in the music.

But the drift has its supporters, too.

Barbara Duhe, a former high school counselor, said she has worshipped at Holy Ghost all her life and welcomes the change. In fact, she helped with the redesign of the side altar and wrote much of the material used at the installation service.”I’m 57 years old. My father and grandfather were here when this parish was founded, and I have this deep feeling that this is a good thing,”she said.”Deep in my heart, I think they would feel good about it too.”DEA END NOLAN

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