LeDoux leaves legacy of the heart

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If you asked Father Jerome LeDoux a question, he would give you the answer, then tell you a story about the answer, and then go on to talk about something else altogether. He loved people, he loved to talk to them, and he loved to talk to them especially about his faith and how it reached far beyond the church door.
In eulogies after his death Jan. 7, folks who knew him described him as “ebullient,” “open,” “friendly,” “non-traditional,” “unconventional,” “full of life,” “passionate about his faith.” He was all of those things and more.
The Lake Charles native, born Feb. 26, 1930, was a nephew of Bishop Harold Perry, one of the first black bishops in the United States in modern times. Perry and LeDoux’s older brother were both ordained for the Society of the Divine Word and were trained at the SVD seminary at Bay St. Louis., Miss.
Father LeDoux said their stories influenced his decision to enter the seminary at age 13.
“They had gone to the seminary ahead of me,” he said in a magazine interview about a year ago. “They painted a picture of Bay St. Louis … [and] referred to it as “The Bay,’ [a] romantic, storied place. … That was the start of it, back in 1943.”
His education included studying for his doctorate in canon law in Rome, after which he returned to teach moral theology and church law at the seminary and, later, at Xavier University in New Orleans. He lived in the rectory of St. Augustine church in New Orleans during the years that he taught at Xavier and returned there in 1990 as pastor, serving for nearly 16 years.
During those years, “he was known for wearing vivid vestments and Birkenstock sandals, dancing in the aisles, and riding a donkey on Palm Sunday,” according to his obituary in the Times-Picayune. He is also remembered for keeping St. Augustine parish alive after the church was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
The parish was established in 1841 and is the oldest African-American parish in the country. But the church was so badly damaged by the hurricane that the Archdiocese of New Orleans decided to consolidate it with neighboring, larger St. Peter Claver Parish.
St. Augustine parishioners said, “No way.” Father LeDoux said, “If there is a way, God will find it.” After stormy protests, St. Augustine was reconsecrated as a parish but there was still no money to fix the church. Two years later the parish received grants from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and from American Express for the needed renovations. Add “perseverance” to his list of characteristics.
His friends said that Father LeDoux maintained an interest in everything around him until the very end — “curiosity about the Scriptures, R&B and jazz music, history, and every person he met,” in the words of one of them.
“He just loved people, loved his ministry,” another said.
For many years, Father LeDoux wrote a weekly column in which he talked about all of the things and ideas that caught his fancy. His last one, in mid-December, was about his “wonderful, 88-year, 9-month-old motor.”
“Our marvelous heart never rests,” he wrote. “{it] does splendid work for many decades, unless it is disabled by some congenital defect, partially incapacitated by accident or disease, or at length worn down by the inexorable advance of old age.”
His “great cardiac motor” was wearing out, he said, and then went on to explain at length how a heart works, and what happens when it fails.
But the “wonderfulness” of Father LeDoux’s heart went well beyond its work as a motor. His legacy will be found in the heartfelt empathy and compassion he offered to everyone he met, and that will be carried on in the many lives he touched.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.