Parish email: olpscmansura [at] centurytel [dot] net

MISSION

Since 1997 St. William Chapel in Olla, Louisiana has been a mission of Our Lady of Lourdes in Winnfield.  There is a Sunday Mass at 5:30 p.m. in Olla.  Although this is a small community of twenty families, they are very strong and active in their faith.  The contact person for St. William in Olla is Anders Thompson.

HISTORY

The Catholic Church began in Winn Parish in 1907.  The Catholic Church family, like many early pioneer church families in Winnfield, held their services at the Winn Parish Courthouse.  Rev. Cornelius Van de Ven, Bishop of Natchitoches, on March 4, 1907, purchased a lot and building, a frame structure with a tin roof, in Winnfield for the Catholic Church.  The church was known as St. Eleonore’s Church in 1939.  It was a mission of St. Lucy’s Catholic Church in Hodge, Louisiana.

The old church was destroyed by fire in 1926.  Mass was held in a number of different places after the fire.  One of the frequent places for Mass to be held was in the home of R. T. Tucker.

In 1945, Bishop Daniel F. Desmond announced that a terminally ill man, unknown to the Catholic parishioners of Winn Parish, decided to donate $5,000 to build a small Catholic Church in a southern town and requested the name of the church to be changed to Our Lady of Lourdes.  Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church was then built on Lafayette Street in Winnfield.  In 1955, Mr. R. T. Tucker died and his wife left a nice sum of money and a rectory was added to the church.

In 1988, a new church was built at 772 Country Club Road under the leadership of Bishop John Favalora.  This was the only church built during his tenure as bishop. The old church was sold.  The small congregation continues to grow and is still the only Catholic Church in Winn Parish.