Denver Newsroom, Feb 14, 2021 / 02:00 am (CNA).- Mardi Gras in New Orleans has been canceled only a handful of times, including during World War I and II, and the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918. This year will be added to that list, as the mayor of New Orleans has canceled Mardi Gras because of the coronavirus pandemic. But seminarians at Notre Dame Seminary are still planning to celebrate Mardi Gras, in their own way.
“I can’t have everybody go home and then come back again, as we’re trying to keep the virus out of the seminary. Which means everybody has to stay here,” said rector Fr. Jim Wehner. “So we’re going to do our own celebrations.”
Many of the seminarians have pickup trucks, and Wehner said there will be a competition to transform those trucks into Mardi Gras floats. The seminarians will then have their own parade of floats in a space behind the seminary. The seminary invited residents at a nearby Catholic nursing home to sit outside to watch the makeshift parade.
“The whole point of Mardi Gras, one of the points, is to promote community…from the neighborhood, from the city, from the Church,” Wehner said. “This will be a chance for us here to step out of the academic world for a few days and just have some really strong community building.”
“Isn’t that what a pastor does, through the sacramental, spiritual life of the Church, we’re building a parish community and that can involve good social encounters. So we’ll model that here a little bit for those days here.”
Wehner was not always a fan of Mardi Gras. In fact, he remembers being scandalized his first year at Notre Dame Seminary, when he first realized seminarians had several days off for Mardi Gras celebrations.
“Why are seminarians participating in Mardi Gras events? Isn’t this pagan and secular?” Wehner said, recalling his memory of that time. “I was pre-judging what I thought Mardi Gras was, which is debauchery, heavy drinking, drugs. Just, you know, immorality.”
“And that maybe is what a lot of people who aren’t from here, the tourists or outsiders…that would have all of this perception of what Mardi Gras is. And there is an element of that that would be maybe more expressed in the tourist parts of the city, but that was completely not the case.”
“I fell in love with the city and then the culture, the history— and certainly Mardi Gras.”
More than one day
Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans is closed the Friday before Mardi Gras until Ash Wednesday. But Mardi Gras actually begins much earlier— on the Feast of the Epiphany, traditionally celebrated January 6th.
“When we speak of Mardi Gras, it’s not just of course the day itself, but the whole season and the attitudes surrounding that,” said Earl Higgins, a Catholic author and New Orleans native. “On the traditional day of the Epiphany, which is January 6 … we shift from the Christmas season to the beginning of the Carnival season, Mardi Gras.”
January 6 is also the birthday of Saint Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans. One of the first parades of the Mardi Gras season is hosted by a group of women known as the ‘Krewe de Jeanne d’Arc.’ The parade passes through the French Quarter, beginning at the foot of a statue of St. Joan of Arc, gifted to the city by the town of Orléans in north-central France.
“There is actually a procession that is not a liturgical procession, a festival procession that goes from her statue to the cathedral and the rector of the cathedral is waiting,” Wehner said. “The person who’s dressed up on a horse as Saint Joan of Arc reaches out the lance and then…the rector…blesses it. And that’s become the informal unofficial start to Mardi Gras.”
January 6th is also the day New Orleanians traditionally eat their first King Cake of the season.
“We call it La Galette du Roi in French,” said Father Keenan Brown, a priest of the Diocese of Lafayette in southern Louisiana. “That tradition comes from France.”
Lafayette is about a two hour drive north west from New Orleans, but the city has a lot of the same Mardi Gras traditions.
“Traditionally, it’s a brioche batter that’s braided and baked, and it’s topped with this really sweet glaze in the three colors and sometimes sprinkles,” he said, referenced the three colors of Mardi Gras: green, gold and violet. The colors represent the gold, frankincense and myrrh that tradition holds the three kings brought to the baby Jesus.
Originally, a bean or a piece of jewelry was baked into the King Cake. But lately, at least in New Orleans, any tokens have been replaced by small plastic dolls representing the infant Jesus.
From Epiphany to Ash Wednesday, the city of New Orleans and many other cities and towns in southern Louisiana light up with masquerade balls – and, of course, parades.
“These parades always run on the same day, at the same time. So everyone in the city refers to the parade and not the day,” Wehner said.
Notre Dame Seminary sits along the path of Endymion, the largest Mardi Gras parade that runs through the city of New Orleans on the Saturday before Fat Tuesday.
“Leading up to this, the custom here – and everyone respects it – is that several days before each parade, you can reserve your spot,” Wehner said. “If you do it the right way, no one will confiscate it. So it’s a gentleman’s agreement— and it’s spray paint and tape.”
It is also customary for locals to man their spots at least 24 hours before the start of the parade.
“So for two days before Endymion, the seminarians will sleep out during the night and we will protect our spot that we have spray painted,” Wehner said.
During that time, the seminarians are praying the rosary, playing cards. Wehner will even celebrate a sunrise Mass.
“People are very, very respectful of the fact that we’re doing this,” Wehner said. “Of course, we’re in our collars, and we’re not embarrassed of who we are. For the seminarians… this is the perfect time for evangelization.”
One of the last parades of Mardi Gras traditionally begins first thing Tuesday morning. I’m talking before dawn. A group called the Skull and Bones Gang runs through the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans dressed as skeletons.
“They go around and knock on the doors at five o’clock in the morning,” Higgins said. “And say ‘wake up, wake up!’ You don’t know how much time you have. It’s to remind people, ‘Hey, life is short! Get up and party!’”
As Fat Tuesday progresses, the historic French Quarter gets pretty saturated with tourists. Higgins said those tourists bring their own ways of celebrating Mardi Gras.
“The French Quarter is not a place where you want to bring your Aunt Maude, or any anybody with any, shall we say social sensibility because it’s pretty raunchy,” he said.
The partying continues until midnight, when yet another great New Orleans Mardi Gras ritual takes place: clean up.
“At one end of Bourbon Street, a team of the police lines up,” Higgins said. “The chief of police is usually at the head of the procession. And policemen on horses and dogs, and they have bullhorns. Right behind the police and the horses are the cleanup crews…And that marks midnight. Mardi Gras is over.”
Brown remembers the end of Mardi Gras was very clear to him as a child.
“We were very aware that when midnight hit, party’s over,” he said. “The next day, everybody goes to Ash Wednesday [Mass]…and everyone goes in for the ashes to begin the penitential season and to make the fast.”
“Now, the funny thing about that is, they’re not just Catholics that get ashes,” Brown said. “Everybody goes to get ashes. I’ve heard of Jews going to get ashes at the cathedral in New Orleans, because it’s just cultural. For some people, it’s very cultural.”
Higgins remembers a pastor who visited his church many years ago from out of town.
“He says he was amazed at the piety of the people in New Orleans. And the rest of us were kind of looking around. ‘What’s this guy talking about?’,” Higgins laughed. “The churches packed on Ash Wednesday in New Orleans, and by many, many people who are not only Catholic, probably don’t believe in anything. But part of the ritual of being in New Orleans is to get ashes on Ash Wednesday. That’s what you do.”
Celebrating Mardi Gras like a Catholic
Tradition runs deep in New Orleans, especially when it comes to Mardi Gras. These traditions have a Catholic flavor that is accepted and celebrated by everyone, even non-Catholics.
“In New Orleans, the culture and Catholicism are inextricably intertwined. You cannot imagine New Orleans without the Catholic Church. It’s just part of the history and the culture, and it affects everybody,” Higgins said.
Fr. Patrick Broussard is vocations director in the Diocese of Lafayette, and pastor of a parish in the town of Church Point. Broussard grew up in Lafayette, and he remembers going to parades with his family when he was a child. He never really enjoyed the Mardi Gras traditions who grew up with, until he moved away to study in Rome.
“Being so far removed from home, I realized how special South Louisiana is in a number of ways, particularly with the Catholic culture…Just seeing how ingrained the Catholic life is in people, even if they don’t practice it or don’t appreciate it,” he said.
“Everything that we do has that sort of Catholic flavor to it.
Higgins likened it to popular devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico.
“Mardi Gras has always been a mixture of, you know, secular and religious. In a way it’s like the Virgin de Guadalupe in Mexico. That’s just part of their culture, whether people believe in whatever they believe in. That’s just who they are. That’s Mardi Gras in New Orleans.”
Wehner was scandalized when he first heard that his seminarians got time off to join in Mardi Gras celebrations. But by now, he’s learned Mardi Gras isn’t something to be afraid of.
“You know, it can be if you’re in the wrong places, in the wrong spaces in the wrong times. But that’s really not the practice when you’re with parishes, you know, the different local parishes have their parishioners at different parts of the parade route, and it’s an all day cooking out and these types of things,” he said.
Plus, it can be a great opportunity to evangelize.
“We have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water,” Broussard said. “if you think of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, you think of all the kind of scandal and craziness that goes on with it. But there is a lot of good in it too.”
“I think just to say, ‘we should not do Mardi Gras’…I think that would be a mistake because there is so much good tied up in it that we could draw from. And even, it could be very beneficial to us in our proclaiming the Gospel. So, hey, you love Mardi Gras. You know that’s a time of preparation for Lent, right? It’s intimately tied in with the Catholic faith. People may not realize it anymore, but I think that’s our sort of way to re-evangelize them.”
Wehner said celebrating Mardi Gras can be incredibly Catholic.
“I always preach to the seminarians, the Catholic Church is not counter-cultural,” he said. “We can be counter societal. Culture is an expression of God’s design. So we will critique anything that tears down what God wants. Society is what man produces. Culture is an expression of God’s Providence.”
“So we are not counter-cultural, we’re all about culture. We’re about promoting it. And at the heart of that is life. It’s family, and we know how to celebrate life very well, with festivals and food and family. That’s a part of our tradition, even tied into the saints. You go to various parts of the world where the whole town is celebrating that saint that came from their neighborhood. And it turns into a festival.”
“I think Mardi Gras is the same way. We’ve just come from the Christmas season. And in between, before we move into the Lenten season, we’re celebrating. The Gospel that can evangelize culture. And when that happens, everybody wins. And you could see that here in New Orleans, which has its own – like any culture – it has its issues and problems. But when the Christian faith speaks to it, you see the best of people.”
This story originally aired on Catholic News Agency’s podcast, CNA Newsroom. It has been adapted for print. Listen to the episode below.
CNA Newsroom · Ep. 91: Mardi Gras (and all that jazz)
[…]
I thought a Catholic who is in mortal sin, if he was informed of the teaching of the Church. I also thought that according to canon law is is not longer in the Church. Is this the case?
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was excommunicated latae sententiae decades ago. Unfortunately no Bishop responsible for his soul has ever had the nerve to codify that fact by issuing a ferendae sententiae excommunication.
His life long mockery of the faith will be addressed, finally, during his particular judgment.
Bishop Paprocki had the moral courage [something that should be done without hesitation although a rarity these days among clerics deserving reference as moral courage] to deny pro-abortion congressman Dick Durbin the Eucharist. And I believe he, along with Archbishop Cordileone would likely deny faux Catholic president Biden.
Biden has gone beyond reasoned propriety to expand abortion to extremes, as well as the imposition of disordered sexual behavior on society, religious institutions including the moral rape of children, in cases providing jurisdiction to remove children from parents to have them indoctrinated and sexually mutilated. What’s equally scandalous is that His Holiness doesn’t emit a peep in disapproval. Should there be wonder why we’re witnessing an apostasy? Our bishops and cardinals are left with the obligation to lead the Church out of this cauldron of evil.
It’s time to notice the extent of the gangrene…
Yes, Bishop Paprocki refers to the Fifth Commandment; yes, Cardinal Gregory identifies Biden as yet another “cafeteria Catholic,” and yes, His Holiness “doesn’t emit a peep.” We might note that the scriptural account of creation not only refers to binary man and woman, but firstly the binary relationship between good and evil.
OUR affliction today is the fluid denial of both binaries. Each denial contained within the other…
BIDEN symbolically signs himself at a pro-abortion rally precisely because the incoherent zeitgeist is already rooted in the (im)purely physical spectrum of gender theory. The discounted “sins below the belt” and Biden’s advocacy of total abortion and the pro-LGBTQ religion are two sides of the same coin.
AND as for the so-called “infinite” value (rather than immense) of the human person, what then of the distinction between the infinite God and finite Man? In Dignitas Infinita why might we detect the language of historical “consciousness” subliminally eclipsing the language of personal consciences? Is the gangrene in the “field hospital” Church so advanced that the patients no longer even comprehend to Judeo-Christian cosmos?
TODAY, our prayers are with “Eucharistic Renewal,” and yet we recall that Archbishop Cardileone’s original proposal was for Eucharistic Coherence—as between faith and actions. A “coherence” now obliterated under the crypto-Aztec Biden’s anti-Catholic/Natural Law agenda. Instead, the spectrum of anti-thought and maybe the ideology of harmonized polarities (the crypto-blessing under Fiducia Supplicans)—but no longer the violation of this or that Commandment, nor the quaint selectivity of merely “cafeteria” Catholics…
The Contradiction of the Cross is replaced by Biden’s fluid “sign of the crossing” of the Rubicon…into Nietzsche’s post-Christian “transvaluation of values.” And, into the rejection of binary human sexuality as now coupled (!) with the rejection of binary GOOD and EVIL.
Fr. Peter, I have long admired your commentary on this website, and I agree with what you say here.
But there is one thing that I would like to call to your attention, since I’m sure that your statement was inadvertent.
You said that Biiden wants to “expand abortion to extremes.”
I want to remind you that there is no abortion that is not extreme. Killing one single baby — at any stage of development — is hideous, unthinkable, extreme in the utmost sense.
Not splitting hairs here, but exactly what is a “ faux Catholic”? No, perhaps he is a real Catholic in deep trouble. To my knowledge he has yet to be publicly excommunicated nor to be publicly declared self excommunicated. Exactly WHY I don’t understand at all, but -if I not mistaken- I believe that is up to the higher clergy, not the lay, to determine. He is a brother who needs much prayer.
James, if and when you’re ordained a priest then you can make that determination in the confessional.
James, I guess I gave a glib response and I apologize. What responsibility I have as a priest references what’s manifest in a person’s behavior. Insofar as judgments, and some are necessary in the external forum there are indicators that guide us to make a moral assessment. With Biden we have direct and blatant statements of ‘disagreement’ with obligatory Catholic doctrine. Furthermore, he has an obvious obsession to dismiss moral justice in favor of a party agenda, that apparently is consistent with his own, perhaps his own even more extreme.
While there was and still is the issue of papal interference with Catholic candidates to the presidency on the Constitutional principle of no [one] religion is to have sway within a government [based on the Church of England prominence in government affairs], the principle of separation of Church and State the Constitution doesn’t prohibit any given religion to freely express its differences or priorities. Nonetheless it has been consistently misinterpreted especially by Democrats that Catholics will be controlled by the Vatican on moral issues particularly abortion, same sex relations.
The enigma now is that we have a presumably Catholic president, evidently sanctioned by his Holiness [visits to the Vatican] who obsessively promotes both abortion and homosexuality to the extent of indoctrination and its legal protection. His Holiness remains silent. As do most bishops except an honest few. As if speaking directly and openly regarding the moral injustices of this president were an abrogation of the Constitution. That is a disordered opinion. Disordered due to reversal in the order of legal right [for a religion to express its differences] and moral right [for a Roman pontiff to chastise a politician be he representative or president]. That, on the most grave issues regarding life or death, salvation or damnation. American bishops seem to be silent regarding Biden because of this misconstrued sense of Church interference in the affairs of State. That line of illegality or moral impropriety does not exist regarding Biden. He should and must be excommunicated. For sake of the truth of our faith and our loyalty to the Constitution.
Articulate and measured statement from a straight-talking bishop.
May his tribe increase.
And now it’s time for all the other bishops in the USA to grow a spine and publicly support what Bishop Paprocki has said about excommunicated Catholic Biden. (Just don’t hold your breath waiting.)
It’s an indictment of the horrific state of Catholic faith formation that a Bishop has to state what should be very obvious to any Catholic. The Bishop, rightfully, is fulfilling his teaching mission but, if our priests would give homilies that align with our faith and not namby pamby, “be good” homilies, maybe things will change for the better, namely, not of the world – Satan.
The Saginaw bishop recently said he was just stupid.
It seems that more and more Priests – just plain Priests at first and now Bishops and Cardinals – are FINALLY finding the nerve to speak up about what has been incredibly obvious for a few decades to those of us in the pews who put what we can into the collection plate each and every week. It seems to be Joe Biden, our devout ‘catholic’ president who has unwittingly become responsible for this, and so the democrats’ irony-deficiency continues unabated.
When will they ever learn?
Conservative bishops are very good at making careful statements. While it is true that Bishop Paprocki has taken some a couple of limited actions, like telling Durbin he can’t receive Communion, they are not close to being enough. Granted, the bishop of Springfield, Illinois can only do so much. Perhaps, though, at the very least he can call out the Cardinal Archbishop of DC for enabling and protecting Biden instead of giving the impression that he and Gregory are of a single mind. At this stage in the Francis era, I don’t expect much from hierarchs who have more of less gone along with the entire program. However, if they are going to make declarations that only elicit yawns or laughs from our enemies, they probably should not say anything at all.
This makes me think of Dante’s Inferno. I wonder what level of hell people like Biden will occupy 🤔. God is not mocked.
As for biden, he is a heretic-end of subject. As for the popes below the belt stupidity, I suggest he read about what Mary stated per sins of the flesh.
Biden has a long record of publicly supporting serious sins while simultaneously claiming to be Catholic. At present, though, he clearly does not always know where he is, who he is with, or what is going on. It’s impossible to say what his intentions were when he made the Sign of the Cross, just as it is impossible to know what his intentions were when he said, “God save the queen!”
Why are you making excuses? Biden’s intentions and character have been clearly and consistently revealed in his words and actions for several years at this point.
Who’s making excuses? He was a bad man before he was senile. Now that he is senile, though, it is largely pointless to pretend every action he takes is the result of a clear-headed decision, whether for good or for evil.
I’m more offended by his simulation of the sacrament of marriage when he was V.P. than by him making the Sign of the Cross.
The rich man died and went to Hell not because he had hurt the poor beggar Lazarus, but because he had lived as though Lazarus wasn’t there, as though the suffering of Lazarus wasn’t happening. (Luke 16:19-31)
Christ again makes clear that we will be damned for grave sins of omission when He declares that on judgement day, He will say to those on His left hand, “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire … for I was hungry and you gave me not to eat, thirsty and you gave me not to drink … ” and goes on to list basic human needs the lack of which He Himself had experienced in the suffering of the least of His brethren. (Matthew 25:31-46)
These hard sayings of Christ are the reason why St. Cyprian, in his treatise On Works and Alms exhorts the flock to do good works and to give alms, not by focusing on the dire plight of the needy, but instead focusing on the fact that their salvation is at stake.
Worldwide, over a billion innocent children of God, Christ in the least of His brethren, have been murdered through “legal” abortion. (No state has the authority to legalize the murder of innocent humanity. That fact was established at the Nuremberg Trials, where prosecutors treated “legal” abortion as a crime against humanity.)
Countess temporarily confused children have had their genitalia surgically or chemically mutilated, “legally.” The sex trafficking of children has become a multi-billion dollar a year business in the United States.
Have we been living as though these things weren’t happening to the innocent children of God? Christ Himself is experiencing these things in the least of His precious brethren.
Even though massive civil disobedience is arguably justified by the current situation, many Catholics will rationalize voting for candidates who are advocates of these atrocities or who are unwilling to alter public policy in order to end them.
It is the duty of the Catholic clergy to exhort the flock regarding their obligation to use the political freedom they still possess to end these atrocities for the sake of Christ unjustly suffering again in these little ones; after all, the salvation of the flock is at stake. The clergy will begin that exhortation or one day hear God almighty incarnate say to them “Depart from me, you cursed …”
Read the White House official proclamation on March 30 2024 of March 31 2024 as Transgender Day of Visibility:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/03/30/a-proclamation-on-transgender-day-of-visibility/
MARCH 30, 2023
A Proclamation on Transgender Day of Visibility