Fr Joseph Guidry Memorial

02/05/2026

05/09/2025

https://www.wbrz.com/news/pope-leo-xiv-has-ties-to-louisiana-going-back-more-than-100-years-historian-says?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR65gMZfR27vBavqQZnAM2BYh65PhQ2-JW50K98_JLRdjURZTG3B4w1TFhfeoA_aem_SgrdsNas63f50NwXDmNcHg

Pope Leo XIV has ties to Louisiana going back more than 100 years, historian says

04/28/2023

This month's issue of IN A WORD from the Divine Word Southern Province is available and highlights the profound poetry of Father Raymond Guidry SVD on the occasion of St. Augustine Seminary's centennial anniversary.

Read it all at: http://www.inaword.com/

11/30/2020

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/healy-bishop-james-augustine-1830-1900/?fbclid=IwAR2pB7VPOKbPO3_6hQ_o4mVuYqyQxbo2HdH3WFMJ-YFshN32wDZs-dzDWYc

James Augustine Healy was the first born of ten children to Michael and Mary Eliza Healy on April 6, 1830 on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Michael Healy was a former Irish soldier who immigrated …

11/30/2020

Harold Robert Perry was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 1916. He was the oldest of six children born to Frank Perry, a rice mill worker, and his wife, Josephine, a domestic cook. The Perry children grew up Catholic in the French-Creole region. Their parents taught them to be tolerant of others a...

11/25/2020

Celebrating National Black Catholic History Month!

In 1934 Bishop Jules B. Jeanmard (1879-1957), the first bishop of the Diocese of Lafayette, became the first bishop in the U.S. South to accept black priests into parish ministry. During this time period, there were only two African American priests in the entire country. The first four black priests ordained for ministry in the South were ordained by the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) at St. Augustine Seminary, Bay St. Louis, May 23,1934.

Fathers Anthony Bourges, Maurice Rousseve, Francis Wade, and Vincent Smith, SVD., were accepted by Bishop Jeanmard to help serve the 50,000 African American Catholics in the Diocese of Lafayette at that time. Following their assignment to Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Lafayette, they laid the original foundation of evangelism, education, collaboration, leadership, and service for the church family. As a result of their courage and foresight, Immaculate Heart of Mary Church became the first southern parish to have all African-American residents in both the rectory and the convent.

To learn more about Black Catholic History in the Diocese of Lafayette please visit our website https://diolaf.org/black-catholic-ministries

10/04/2020

🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
Circa 1940’s

06/10/2020

In 1934, Divine Word Fathers Vincent Smith, Francis Wade, Maurice Rousseve, and Anthony Bourges became the first four graduates of St. Augustine Seminary in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, the first African-American Catholic seminary in the United States. Eighty-six years ago, the Divine Word Missionaries believed that Black Lives Matter, and we still believe it today. We stood for change then, and we stand for equality now!

(source: Society of the Divine Word - Chicago Province )

12/28/2019

Who was Fr. Joe Guidry?

Here (in his own words) is a copy of Fr. Guidry’s handwritten notes from his jubilee celebration.

He entered the seminary at Bay St. Louis in 1942. He was ordained a priest in 1957.