Who lies beneath St. Louis Cathedral?
Jimmie Dorsey holds the trap door up as The Rev. Crosby Kern, right, shows where bishops and auxiliary bishops are buried beneath the floor at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans on Friday, September 30, 2011. (SUSAN POAG, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune archives)
When retired Archbishop Francis Bible Schulte is interred after his funeral Mass on Thursday (Jan. 28), he will join 12 other local Roman Catholic leaders put to rest beneath floor of the St. Louis Cathedral. Here are some facts provided by the Archdiocese of New Orleans about bishops buried in the cathedral:
- Bishop Leo de Neckere was this first bishop buried in the cathedral, in 1833.
- Since 1850, the New Orleans archdiocese has had 14 archbishops. Ten were buried in the cathedral. Two are buried elsewhere: Napoleon Perche, who died in Ambierle, France in 1870, and John Cody, who died as cardinal archbishop of Chicago in 1982. Two archbishops, Gregory Aymond and Alfred Hughes, are still alive.
- Francis Janssens, the fourth archbishop of New Orleans, died at sea in 1897 and his body was returned to New Orleans for burial. Janssens died aboard the steamboat Creole, which was bound for New York. He was 53.
- Two archbishops died of yellow fever: Leo de Neckere and Placide Louis Chapelle. Chapelle, for whom a Metairie high school is named, died in New Orleans' last yellow fever outbreak in 1906.
- All of the archbishops are buried in the cathedral sanctuary, not the side chapels.
- Tombstones or commemorative plaques of the archbishops and bishops buried in the cathedral are on the walls of the cathedral. They provide brief biographical information for each.
- These clergy will serve as pallbears for Schulte's funeral: the Rev. Walter Austin, the Rev. Paul Desrosiers, the Rev. Rodney Bourg, the Rev. Michael Kettenring, Msgr. Henry Bugler, the Rev. Anthony Gifoli, Msgr. John Cisewski and the Rev. John Talamo.
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