Hurricane Katrina, one of the most powerful and costliest tropical storms to hit the US, formed in the Atlantic on August 23, 2005, and had moved across Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, up to New Orleans, by August 29. The city suffered massive flooding and extensive damage primarily due to the failure of the surrounding levees. More than 1,000 people died in Louisiana, and more than one million people from around the region were displaced, the largest diaspora in US history.
The following reflection was written by Jacques Detiege, a member of the Pax Christi USA Anti-Racism Team and a native New Orleanian.
There is a sanitized narrative that New Orleans was unified in a resolve to rebuild following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. I remember returning in 2007 to a city of unrest and little peace. Limited resources, fear, and unresolved trauma fueled social and racial conflict. There was much dissension over which citizens were worthy of returning, which children would have access to quality schools, which parishes had value to rebuild, and which communities should be bulldozed and which should be “built back better.” For many, social and emotional trauma were relived daily in these conflicts.
New Orleans was a new environment, and I had to adjust to the reality of my new community and my new social connections. My old parish, St. Frances Cabrini, was demolished and merged with St. Raphael to become Transfiguration of Our Lord Parish. Although a fitting name, I never felt as if parishioners from these two neighboring faith communities ever fully transformed into one body. There was always the remembrance of which statues and which families came from each of the parishes.
Leaning into my faith, I accepted a job at Xavier University of Louisiana in 2010. I worked closely with Sr. Jamie Phelps and the Institute for Black Catholic Studies. This led to my connecting with Sr. Patty Chappell and being recruited to join the Pax Christi USA Anti-Racism Team (PCART) in 2017. In 2018, I joined the Archdiocese of New Orleans Racial Harmony Committee, facilitating parish sessions around the reconciliation letter penned by Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes. His letter to the faithful and the reconciliation sessions were an attempt to build back trust and community after a realization that the archdiocese’s post-Katrina response to population loss and financial stress had ignored the cultural relevance of historically Black parishes and had continued a legacy of racial inequity.
My anti-racism work with both PCART and the Racial Harmony Committee provided the balm to heal my soul from the social and emotional trauma I had been living through. I cannot say that either I or New Orleans has recovered from the trauma inflicted by nature, man-made engineering failures, or the racist and classist response to the disaster; much of the dissension over social and economic issues has yet to be resolved. I have found peace in my work to build new community, fight for justice, and dismantle white privilege through the Gospel of Christ and a Catholic Social Justice framework. While not recovered, I have a path to walk in solidarity with others.
Ametur Cor Jesu! Ametur Cor Mariea! (Love be the heart of Jesus! Love be the heart of Mary!)