The Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana (Latin: Dioecesis Lafayettensis, ) is a Latin Catholic ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans. The diocese was erected by the Vatican in 1918, and its current bishop is J. Douglas Deshotel. Covering St. Landry, Evangeline, Lafayette, St. Martin, Iberia, St. Mary, Acadia, and Vermilion parishes with exception to Morgan City of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux), the diocese is divided into four deaneries.

History

1700 to 1918

During the mid-1700s, when Louisiana was part of the Spanish Empire, Catholic settlers from Spain, France, and Germany started arriving in the Lafayette area. Starting in 1755, they were joined by numerous French Acadians whom the British had expelled from their homes in present-day Nova Scotia. The following are the first Catholic parishes in the area: After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, all of present-day Louisiana became part of the United States. At that time, Louisiana was part of the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, with its see city as New Orleans. In 1825, the Vatican renamed this diocese as the Diocese of New Orleans. The Lafayette area would be part of the Diocese of New Orleans, succeeded by the Archdiocese of New Orleans, for the next 93 years.

1918 to 1950

Pope Benedict XV erected the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana on January 11, 1918, with territory taken from the Archdiocese of New Orleans. The pope named Monsignor Jules Jeanmard of New Orleans as the first bishop of the new diocese. Jeanmard designated Saint John's Church in Lafayette as the cathedral. In March 1923, a crowd in Lafayette was on the verge of starting a race riot after being incited by the Ku Klux Klan. Jeanmard persuaded the people to return home. In 1924, Jeanmard opened St. Mary's Orphanage in Lafayette. That same year, he requested that the Sisters of the Most Holy Sacrament move their motherhouse from New Orleans to Lafayette. He assisted them in building the retreat wing of their convent. Jeanmard assisted the Newman Club of Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute in buying land and building a clubhouse at the institute in 1929. In 1934, Jeanmard welcomed the first African-American priests into the diocese. The bishop established a number of separate parishes for African-Americans. With funding from Sister Katharine Drexel, Jeanmard helped establish several rural schools for African-Americans in the diocese. The Discalced Carmelites moved into the Monastery of Mary, Mother of Grace, their new convent in Lafayette, in 1936. In 1938, Jeanmard opened the Our Lady of the Oaks Retreat House in Grand Coteau. In 1948, Jeanmard established the Immaculata Minor Seminary in Lafayette, a high school/college program for teenage boys entering the priesthood.

1950 to 1990

In 1952, Jeanmard became the first bishop in the Deep South to ordain an African-American man to diocesan priesthood when he conferred holy orders upon Louis Ledoux. In November 1955, Jeanmard excommunicated two women from Erath, Louisiana, after they assaulted a woman who taught an integrated catechism class. Jeanmard encouraged diocesan-sponsored television programs, religious radio programs in both English and French, and a diocesan newspaper, The Southwest Louisiana Register. Jeanmard also issued pastoral letters in support of the rights of labor to organize. After Jeanmard retired in 1956, Pope Pius XII named Auxiliary Bishop Maurice Schexnayder as the next bishop of Lafayette in Louisiana. During his tenure, Schexnayder built a new chancery building, expanded the Immaculata Minor Seminary, established 31 parishes and ordained 81 priests. In 1961, he dedicated St. Eugene Catholic Church in Grand Chenier. Eager to increase lay participation in the parishes, Schexnayder established parish councils, school boards and other advisory panels staffed by lay people. He retired in 1972. In 1972, Pope Paul VI named Gerard Frey of New Orleans as the third bishop of Lafayette in Louisiana. In 1980, Pope John Paul II erected the Diocese of Lake Charles, assigning the western half of the Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana to the new diocese. During his tenure, Frey launched the Social Apostolate, a social service agency designed "to put people in the pews in touch with the poor." Continuing Schexnayder's initiative, Frey also encouraged every church in the diocese to establish a parish council. John Paul II appointed Reverend Harry Flynn from the Diocese of Albany as coadjutor bishop in 1989 to assist Frey. When Frey retired later that year, Flynn automatically became the new bishop.

1990 to the early 21st century

Flynn served in Lafayette in Louisiana until 1994, when John Paul II named him archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. To replace Flynn, the pope appointed Auxiliary Bishop Edward O'Donnell from the Archdiocese of St. Louis. One of O'Donnell's initiatives was to increase the number of African-Americans in diocesan affairs. He also instituted one of the first zero-tolerance policies towards child sexual abuse by clergy in the nation. O'Donnell retired in 2002. In 2002, John Paul II appointed Charles Jarrell of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Houma–Thibodaux as bishop of Lafayette in Louisiana. Jarrell retired in 2016. In November 2019, parishes throughout the diocese raised $50,000 to assist the congregations of three African-American churches that had destroyed by arson. In May 2024, parishioners averted a potential mass shooting at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church in Abbeville when they stopped an armed 16-year-old boy from entering the church. As of 2024, the bishop of Lafayette in Louisiana is J. Douglas Deshotel, formerly an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Dallas. He was appointed by Pope Francis in 2016.

Sex abuse controversies

In 1980, the diocese suspended the priest Gilbert Gauthe from his pastoral position. As early as 1972, three priests had confronted Gauthe about his misconduct with boys. In 1983, the diocese received a complaint from a family that Reverend Robert Fontenot had sexually abused their child. He had been transferred out of other parishes due to complaints by priests that he was molesting children. The diocese sent Fontenot to the House of Affirmation, a Catholic treatment center for pedophile priests in Whitinsville, Massachusetts. The diocese reportedly paid $1 million in compensation to several of his victims. In 1986, Fortenot was arrested in Spokane, Washington, on charges of molesting boys at a drug treatment center. He was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison. In 2008, the diocese paid a settlement to a former altar boy who said the priest Valerie Pullman had sexually abused him in 1972. Pullman had been accused as early as 1966 of sexually abusing children at different parishes in the diocese. In 2014, Minnesota Public Radio obtained documents from a 1988 lawsuit filed by the diocese against its insurers over sexual abuse claims. The insurers accused the diocese of protecting priests accused of sexually abusing children. The companies "argued that the diocese knew for years, if not decades, that some of their priests had fondled and even raped children" and that "the molestations took place largely during the reigns of Bishops Maurice Schexnayder and his successor, Bishop Frey". In 2015, it was revealed that ten years previously, the diocese had paid a $26 million settlement to the families of 123 children who were sexually abused by diocese priests between 1959 and 2002. The Daily Advertiser urged the release of the priests' names, but Bishop Jarrell refused. In October 2018, Reverend David Broussard received a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography. Louisiana State Police had found 500 images of child pornography on his computer during a search of the rectory at St. Bernard Parish in Breaux Bridge. In March 2019, Reverend Michael Guidry confessed to molesting Oliver Peyton, a 16-year-old boy. Peyton, the son of Scott Peyton, the church deacon, was abused by Guidry at his residence in St. Landry Parish. In April 2019, Guidry pleaded guilty and received a seven-year prison sentence. In March 2024, Bishop Deshotel excommunicated Scott Peyton after he announced that the family was leaving the Catholic Church. In April 2019, the diocese released a list of 33 diocesan clergy who were credibly accused of committing acts of sex abuse. The Louisiana Supreme Court said in June 2024 that it would allow a "look back" period in which victims of sexual abuse could sue their perpetrators, despite the statute of limitations. Soon after that ruling, the diocese was named in six new sexual abuse lawsuits.

Bishops

Diocesan bishops

Former auxiliary bishops

Other diocesan priests who became bishops

High schools

Ecclesiastical province of New Orleans