The 1803 Louisiana Purchase incorporated most of the Diocese of Louisiana into the United States; its boundaries were further clarified when Louisiana was admitted to the Union as a state in 1812. The city successfully defended itself against the English attack in 1814-1815. The city's women gathered at the Ursuline Convent to pray before the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor as the enemy advanced. An annual Mass commemorating the Battle of New Orleans victory is still celebrated at the Ursuline Convent.

The diocese was divided twice during this period. In 1826, the Diocese of St. Louis was created, encompassing the northern part of the diocese. In 1829, the Diocese of Mobile was established. By 1830, the Diocese of New Orleans, as it was now known, was reduced in size to present-day Louisiana and Mississippi.

The period following the Louisiana Purchase has been called the low-point of Louisiana Catholicism. It was a period of lack of clear ecclesiastical authority, confusion, scarcity of priests and religious, uncertainty about the Church's future, scandalous moral laxity, frequent anti-clericalism among post-revolutionary French immigrants, and widespread indifference.

In 1815, Bishop Louis William DuBourg was named Louisiana's bishop. DuBourg's successor, Bishop Joseph Rosati, chose St. Louis as his diocese and administered New Orleans from there for more than three years. Not until 1829 was the frail young Vincentian priest, Leo de Neckčre, named Bishop of New Orleans.

Only one new parish was established in New Orleans in the thirty years following the Louisiana Purchase - St. Patrick in 1833. Only four parishes were established in the rural areas at Convent, Grand Coteau, Lafayette (then known as Vermillionville), and Thibodaux.

One of Bishop DuBourg's most enduring contributions to the Louisiana Church was the recruitment of the new clergy and religious from France. The Vincentians, the Religious of the Sacred Heart, and a new group of Ursulines were among his early recruits.

By 1835, Louisiana's Catholic population had undergone a profound change. Four large groups of immigrants and transplanted North Americans had transformed Louisiana's demographic profile: the 10,000 Santo Domingan refugees who arrived in 1809-1810; the Germans; the Irish; and the English-speaking Protestants who settled mainly in northern Louisiana. South Louisiana remained a predominantly Catholic (and French) enclave within the South's Protestant "Bible Belt." Louisiana itself became increasingly divided between the French Catholic South and the Anglo Protestant North.

Other Significant Dates

2. Statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, located in the National Shrine on the campus of Ursuline Academy, New Orleans