Jules Jeanmard

Jules Benjamin Jeanmard (August 15, 1879 – February 23, 1957), was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as the first bishop of Lafayette in Louisiana from 1918 to 1956.

Biography Early life Jules Jeanmard was born on August 15, 1879, in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, to Jules and Frances Maria (née Brown) Jeanmard. He received his early education at the parochial school of St. Bernard Parish in Breaux Bridge. He then attended St. Joseph Seminary in St Benedict, Louisiana and Our Lady of Holy Cross College in New Orleans, Louisiana. His first assignment was as a curate at St. Louis Cathedral, where he served through the yellow fever epidemic of 1905. He then served as apostolic administrator of the newly erected Diocese of Lafayette.

During his 38-year tenure, Jeanmard established the Immaculata Seminary and St. Mary's Orphan Home in Lafayette, Louisiana. He also opened the Our Lady of the Oaks Retreat House in Grand Coteau, Louisiana and the Catholic Student Center at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette. Jeanmard's other projects included a retreat wing of the Most Holy Sacrament Convent, a Carmelite monastery, and numerous schools and churches. He encouraged diocesan-sponsored television programs, religious radio programs in both English and French, and a diocesan newspaper The Southwest Louisiana Register. In 1934, he welcomed the first African-American priests into the diocese, a group of men educated and ordained at St. Augustine Seminary in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Jeanmard also established a number of separate parishes for African-Americans, whom he did not want intimidated or infringed upon by whites.

With financial assistance from Mother Katharine Drexel, Jeanmard helped establish several rural parochial schools for African-Americans. In 1952, he ordained Louis Ledoux, an African-American graduate of St. Augustine's. Jeanmard became the first bishop in the Deep South of the United States to ordain an African-American as a priest. In November 1955, Jeanmard excommunicated two women in Erath, Louisiana, after they beat another woman who taught an integrated catechism class.

Retirement and legacy On March 13, 1956, Jeanmard retired as bishop of Lafayette in Louisiana; he was appointed titular bishop of Bareta by Pope Pius XII on the same date. Jeanmard died on February 23, 1957, at a hospital in Lake Charles, at age 77. He is interred at St. John Cathedral in Lafayette.