The Sisters of the Holy Family and the Veil of Race

Abstract

In 1872, a young novice, Sister Marie, appeared at the door of the private study of Napoleon Perche, archbishop of New Orleans. This was not Sister Marie's first visit to the archbishop's residence. As a member of the religious order “last in rank” in the city, she was regularly called on to perform housekeeping duties for the archbishop and had worked for him in this capacity first as a postulant and later as a novice. Today, the reason for her visit was different: she appeared before him for the first time in a religious habit, which her order's mother superior, Josephine Charles, had designed and made. Mother Josephine was one of three founders of the Soeurs de Sainte-Famille or Sisters of the Holy Family (SSF), the order lowest in rank in New Orleans because its members were women of African descent.

“Though Their Skin Remains Brown, I Hope Their Souls Will Soon Be White”: Slavery, French Missionaries, and the Roman Catholic Priesthood in the American South, 1789–1865

“…Batts Morrow, Carol Coburn, and Martha Smith have provided historians with insight into questions of race, gender, and religious identity in various historical and cultural contexts. 22 Historian Amy Koehlinger, perhaps more than most, respects the unfinished, processual quality of the institutions of women religious. In doing so, she "aims to shed new light on the diversity and internal complexity of the lives that sisters created for themselves."…”

“Authentically Black, and Truly Catholic”: A survey of the study on Black Catholics

“…Cultural studies, religious studies, and theology research, including some texts that are authored by Black Catholics, have explored the intersections of race, gender, and religion as it relates to Black Catholics (Brett, , ; Brown, ; Deggs, ; Fessenden, ; Hayes, ). Since the 1960s and the Black Nationalist movement, Black Catholics have authored several texts critiquing the Roman Catholic church as historically racist (Bowman, , ; Lucas, ; Massingale, ).…”

“…An important aspect of the work in the fields of religion and theology is the significance of the contributions Black Catholics have had to the work of Catholicism, though without recognition. Through the works of Edward Brett (, 2012) and Tracy Fessenden (), we see the value Black Catholics placed on obtaining full citizenship within the church and the expense paid to achieve it. Their studies on the Sisters of the Holy Family, founded in the late 1800s in New Orleans, Louisiana, illustrate the struggles of race, sexuality, and labor.…”

“…Often indistinguishable from Whites visually, in the culture of French New Orleans they were considered inferior to those who were exclusively Caucasian but privileged over dark‐skinned African‐ Americans (Brett, , ). For many women, within the city of New Orleans, the choice of religious life was also an opportunity to avoid the hypersexual gaze of the city's elite (Fessenden, ). For many who entered into the Sisters of the Holy Family, the veil would serve as a way to subvert the gaze of White men (Deggs, ).…”