The Parish was officially established in 1939 by the Most Reverend Jules B. Jeanmard, Bishop of Lafayette, and it serves four communities—Bell City, Hayes, Holmwood, and portions of Sweetlake. Prior to the establishement of the parish, Catholics in the area were served by priests from Our Lady Help of Christians Parish in Jennings. Later, priests from Our Lady of Seven Dolors Parish in Welsh, and
finally from St. A chapel dedicated to St. Joseph was built in the Lorrain Community in the far eastern part of the parish on property donated by the Derouen Family with lumber donated from the Lorrain Family lumber mill on Bayou Lacassine. This chapel served the community until it was destroyed by a storm in 1939. The church cemetery is today still located in this quiet, rural spot deep in the heart of the farming community. The founding pastor, The Reverend Mathias J. Cramers, arrived in April of 1938 to get things moving. A hall, which the Altar Society had built in Bell City to hold fund-raising bazaars, was transformed into a temporary chapel for celebration of the Mass. The first item on Father Cramer’s agenda was the construction of a rectory, which was completed in August, 1939. Because of population shifts, the rectory and the church that followed were moved to a site along Highway 14 in Bell City. This was deemed to be a more central location in a day when dirt and gravel roads often made travel difficult. The next project, of course, was a church, and groundbreaking was held on August 8, 1940. The building was completed and dedicated by Bishop Jeanmard on December 1 of the same year. The first parish trustees were Ferdinand Nunez and Harry Verret. The first official parish records began in May, 1939. Earlier records were kept in Jennings, beginning in 1892, in Welsh from 1904 and from Iowa from 1930. Father Cramers also said Mass in Hayes, Thornwell, and Lowery from his headquarters in Bell City as these small farming communities were then served from St. John Vianney. In 1950, the Reverend Daniel Habetz succeeded Father Cramers as pastor, and one of his first projects was the construction of St. Daniel Chapel in Hayes, on property donated by Mr. Felix Hebert. The chapel was dedicated on April 16, 1953, and St. Daniel Mission was officially attached to St. John Vianney Parish. With the coming of better roads and more dependable transportation, the chapels in Thornwell and Lowery were eventually attached to Our Lady of the Lake Parish in Lake Arthur, and St. Daniel Chapel in Hayes was closed in 2004. The church community has always considered church facilities to be top priority and improvements have continuously been made over the years. The rectory was enlarged, the church was renovated in 1981, and most recently a new catechism center is being constructed on property purchased adjacent to the church. The newly constructed religious education facility will served 210 students and their teachers with parish offices for the pastor, parish secretary, and religious education director. The building will also house a parish meeting room for small groups such as the parish financial and pastoral councils and youth groups. The latest renovation of the church started in 2015 and was completed in 2018 with the replacement of the old wood yellow paned windows with beautiful handmade stained glass windows. The parish also consists of two religious organizations whose purpose is to support the church and its fundamental goals. The Bell City Knights of Columbus Council 3048, which was organized and chartered on April 9, 1957, with Matthew Fruge as the charter Grand Knight; and the St. John Vianney Ladies Altar Society which is a consolidated organization made up of the former Bell City Ladies Altar Society (established in 1905 with Mrs. Dulva Derouen as first president) and the Hayes Ladies Altar Society (organized in 1952 with Mrs. Elias Lorrain as president). The new millennium has witnessed changes to St. John Vianney Parish as new Catholic families have moved into subdivisions created in the western portion of the parish nearer to Holmwood. Hurricane Rita which battered the area and devastated much of civil Cameron Parish in 2005 has also been the cause of St. John Vianney receiving many Catholic families from Cameron Parish. This first decade of the new millennium has shown the welcoming spirit of the church parish. The community of St. John Vianney has welcomed these new families into its midst with the hope that all can find comfort and spiritual growth as others have done since the parish began in 1939.
