The Diocese began its Relief Effort of Catholic Social Services (RECSS) by placing disaster relief distribution sites at St. Patrick Chapel and at St. Peter the Apostle. The Catholic Service Center, which had been providing Katrina evacuees with assistance, lost its building on Broad Street and for a time was installed in the Catholic Deaf Center located next to the Chancery. Later it found another temporary home in rented space just around the corner from the Diocesan offices. The assistance of Catholic Charities USA with grants totaling more than $3 million has made providing all manner of relief from food and cleaning supplies to building supplies to gift cards to counseling assistance easier. The generosity of Catholic Charities as well as contributions from individuals, organizations and dioceses around the country along with volunteers from all over the United States has made it possible for the area to bounce back. While we will never be like we were before, we are getting back to “normal,” although it is a new “normal.”
The Catholic Charities grants also allowed the Diocese to establish an Office of Disaster Response, headed by Mrs. Sandy Gay, longtime Director of the Office of Religious Education and Youth Ministry.
Every office of the Diocese as well as all of the staff has provided steady service during this continuing difficult time of repair and rebuilding. With Msgr. Greig at the helm as Diocesan Administrator, work began to bring back the badly damaged parishes.
Work continues on all of the churches in Cameron Parish with St. Eugene in Grand Chenier closest to being completed.
After a period nearly two years, on March 6, 2007, the Holy See appointed the Reverend Monsignor Glen John Provost, pastor of Our Lady of Fatima Church in Lafayette as the Bishop of the Diocese of Lake Charles. Bishop-elect Provost was ordained a Bishop on April 23, 2007 in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and installed as the Third Bishop of the Diocese. On April 22, he took canonical possession of the Diocese at a Vespers (Evening Prayer) Service in the Cathedral.
The occasion of Bishop Provost’s ordination and installation brought back the Diocese’s first two ordinaries – Bishop Speyrer and Bishop Braxton – for the festivities.
Bishop Provost’s first official act as Bishop found him making a number of appointments, confirmations and affirmations to provide for the needs of the Church entrusted to his care. On April 23, he confirmed Deacon George Stearns in the office of Chancellor, re-established the Presbyteral Council as well as noted that the College of Consultors continues to function according to the laws of the Church. He also decreed that the Deans of the three deaneries of the Diocese, Rev. Archimandrite Herbert J. May in the East Deanery, the Very Rev. William Miller in the Central Deanery, and the Rev. Msgr. Vincent Sedita in the West Deanery would continue to fulfill the offices entrusted to them.
He also confirmed Rev. Msgr. Jace Eskind as Judicial Vicar, Rev. Albert Borel as Adjutant Judicial Vicar and Rev. Archimandrite May as Judge in the Diocesan Tribunal. The Bishop also decreed that all other diocesan officials, committees, and commissions were to fulfill the mandate issued them by his predecessor.
The Bishop conducted his first Confirmation on April 25 at Immaculate Conception Church in Maplewood.
He also ordained his first priest on May 25 in the person of Rev. Derek Covert. The ordination took place in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
On June 1, 2007, hurricane season began and the Bishop wrote in the Catholic Calendar a letter to the people of the Diocese asking for their prayers during this time of potential peril. He invoked the prayer composed by Bishop Maurice Schexnayder of the Diocese of Lafayette following Hurricane Audrey in 1957, noting 2007 was the 50th anniversary of the devastation and death caused by Audrey, particularly in Cameron Parish, where hundreds were killed.
He gave the 2007 keynote address at the graduation of 129 students from St. Louis Catholic High School.
On June 15, he named the Very Reverend Daniel Torres as Vicar General of the Diocese and appointed a number of priests as Secretaries to various Secretariats in the Diocese - Rev. Msgr. Harry D. Greig, Secretary of the Ministry of Administration, the Very Rev. Aubrey Guilbeau, Secretary of the Ministry of Clergy and Religious, Rev. Henry Mancuso, Secretary of the Ministry of pastoral Services, and Rev. Whitney Miller, Secretary of the Ministry of Christian Formation. Father Miller was also named Associate Director of Saint Charles Center and Rev. Marcus Johnson became Rector of St. Louis Catholic High School.
He also appointed three priests as “Vocation Recruiters” in his plan to more actively seek out men who are being called to the priesthood – Rev. Wayne LeBleu, Rev. Derek Covert, and Rev. Johnson.
Bishop Provost re-dedicated the Church of St. Eugene in Grand Chenier on June 16, blessing the facility, which had been severely damaged by Hurricane Rita, nearly two years before. A mural of the Crucifixion painted on the wall behind the altar of the church was repainted by local artists Pat and Elton Louviere.
Work was continuing on the reconstruction of other churches in Cameron Parish, which had been devastated by Rita, including Our Lady Star of the Sea in Cameron, Sacred Heart of Jesus in Creole, and St. Peter the Apostle in Hackberry.
St. Mary of the Lake in Big Lake, which had been inundated with more than 18 inches of Rita’s floodwaters, had reopened in January 2007 having been blessed by its pastor, Rev. Msgr. Greig.
On June 27, the anniversary of Hurricane Audrey, Rev. Joseph McGrath, pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Creole, celebrated Mass in the nearly completed Our Lady Star of the Sea Church in Cameron
On July 1, 2007, Bishop Provost, blessed two mass graves containing more than 150 unidentified victims of Hurricane Audrey located at Combre Memorial Park and Highland Memory Gardens.
Deacon Edward Lavine led a delegation to the National Black Catholic Congress X in Buffalo, New York from July 12-15.
Nine members of the Diocesan Youth Ministry Core Team, along with their adult leaders, attended “One Bread, One Cup”, a youth liturgical leadership conference on the campus of St. Meinrad School of Theology in July.
Bishop Provost wrote his first pastoral letter to the faithful of the Diocese of Lake Charles on August 4, the Feast of St. John Vianney, asking them to join him in a year of prayer specifically for vocations to the priesthood in the Diocese. On August 25, the Bishop ordained Ruben Buller and Nathan Long to the transitional diaconate. Bishop noted that the year of prayer for priestly vocations would culminate in the celebration of the ordination to the priesthood of the two deacons at Pentecost in 2008.
He also instituted a program among the parishes of the Diocese of 40 Hours of Devotion before the Blessed Sacrament to promote vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Each month churches in a specific deanery would hold 40 hours of adoration.
Tony Melendez, the celebrated Nicaraguan-born musician, was the headliner for the Second Annual Proud2BCatholic Music Festival, sponsored by the Office of Youth Ministry. Melendez, who was born without arms due to his mother’s taking of the drug Thalidomide, came to international fame following his performance for Pope John Paul II in 1987. More than 1,800 people participated in the daylong event held in Sulphur.
Catholic Schools of the Diocese opened on August 16 with an enrollment of 2,707, an increase of 60 students over the previous year’s opening day total.
Bishop Provost led a prayer service on September 9, the Feast of St. Peter Claver, the patron saint of the Diocese, in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
The celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Liturgy in Latin began in the Diocese on September 14, 2007 following Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio entitled “Summorum Pontificum,” allowing “any priest competent in Latin and in the rite itself to celebrate the Mass of Pope Pius V, in the form published by Blessed John XXIII.” Previously, the celebration of what had come to be known as the “Tridentine Mass” required special permission from the Bishop of the Diocese. A number of priests, including Rev. Roland Vaughn, Rev. Joe McGrath, and Rev. Rommel Tolentino, began a regular schedule of Sunday afternoon celebration of the Extraordinary Form in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and at St. Peter the Apostle in Hackberry.
St. Peter the Apostle had been badly damaged by Hurricane Rita but the church was completed and Mass was once again being celebrated.
Ten men were studying for the priesthood at the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year.
The second anniversary of Hurricane Rita came on September 24. The Diocese, through the auspices of the Relief Effort of Catholic Social Services, aided more than 3,900 families, distributing assistance totaling nearly $2.5 million. The new offices for Catholic Charities, located in the former rectory of Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Lake Charles, were blessed by Bishop Provost.
The Bishop, along with 101 other new Bishops from around the world, met with the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, during a weeklong event in Rome in September.
The Catholic Calendar, the page purchased in various secular media of the Diocese, celebrated its 25th anniversary on October 15. The original page was a newspaper printed by the Rev. Cornelius Van de Ven, pastor of the Immaculate Conception Church in Lake Charles, begun in 1897
In November 2007, Bishop Provost instituted the “First Friday Men’s Prayer Breakfast” which is held in the Ave Maria Hall of the Cathedral office building, located at the corner of Kirby and Bilbo streets.
The blessing of the newly refurbished Our Lady Star of the Sea Church in Cameron took place on November 18 and was done by Bishop Provost. The church was the second to be brought back into full operation following Hurricane Rita
Also in November, Bishop Provost continued the long time tradition of honoring deceased members of the Companions of Honor, an organization of Catholic clergy, including Monsignori, religious and lay people who have been decorated by the Holy See or the Diocese of Lake Charles, plus those Catholic members of internationally recognized Orders of Chivalry residing in the Diocese.
The Louisiana Catholic Conference, of which the Diocese of Lake Charles is a member, became the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops on January1, 2008 in a move that would help identify the conference as a direct representative of the Catholic Church with its authority coming from the bishops.
Also during the month of January, 85 local teens along with their adult leaders, joined more than 20,000 other Catholics at the National Catholic Youth Conference in Columbus, Ohio.
In January, Rev. Henry Mancuso, Secretary of the Ministry of Pastoral Services, released a national report indicting that the issue of poverty cannot be responsibly addressed without addressing the impact of racism. “I propose that the two –poverty and racism are intertwined,” Father Mancuso said He also proposed a wide-ranging course of action to minimize and work to eliminate poverty and racism in the Diocese.
Also during that month, the Catholic Calendar’s redesigned and full-color masthead was introduced.