History of the Minor Basilica of the Immaculate Conception church parish

On the night of October 7, 1853, Fr. Auguste Marie Martin, pastor of St. Francis Church in Natchitoches and Vicar-Forane for all of north Louisiana, received a letter from his ordinary, Archbishop Antoine Blanc of New Orleans. The letter contained two papal bulls signed by His Holiness, Pope Pius IX on July 29 – one establishing a new diocese in north Louisiana with its See city in Natchitoches and the other electing Auguste Martin as the first bishop of the new diocese. The bishop-elect recorded that on receiving the news of his appointment:

“I repaired to my poor ‘cathedral’ and spent an hour before the Blessed Mother’s altar before calm was restored.”

The Church of St. Francis, where Bishop Martin prayed on that October night, was a damaged, leaky, brick structure measuring roughly 100 feet long by 50 feet wide. Constructed between 1839 and 1842, it was the sixth Catholic church to be built in Natchitoches. The first mass in the area had been celebrated by a Spanish Franciscan, Venerable Friar Antonio Margil de Jesus, the founder of the Franciscan mission of Los Adaes, in 1717. Mass was celebrated in the home of Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, the founder of Natchitoches, and his wife, Dona Emanuele, before the construction of a small wood-frame mud-filled chapel at Fort St. Jean Baptiste. The sacramental registers of the parish begin with the record of a baptism in 1724. The first priest to sign as pastor, Fr. Maximin, recorded a baptism in April 1729. 

A larger parochial church was built outside the walls of the fort in 1737. In 1771, three years after the consolidation of Spanish rule, Fr. Stanislaus, the last French Capuchin pastor, laid the cornerstone for a new church built from soft local stone. It was inscribed:

“To God be the best and greatest. In the Year of Salvation, 1771, this stone was laid in the foundation of this holy and venerable church in due order and in the name of Don Luis de Unzaga ruling in the province on behalf of His Most Catholic Majesty for all posterity to remember.”

Architectural drawings and plans found in the “Archivo general de Indias” in Madrid, dated April 18, 1786, indicate the construction of a fourth church in Natchitoches. Larger than its predecessors, the new church of St. Francis of Assisi was built under the direction of Fr. Jean Delvaux, according to a French colonial design facing the river near the northwest corner of what is now Front and Church Street – the new civic center laid out by the Spanish authorities.

After the Louisiana Purchase, the parish was incorporated and recognized by the state legislature on February 10, 1813. In 1823, the church burned together with sixty-five other structures – virtually destroying the community. After the fire, mass was offered for a time in a public hall. In 1826, the Louisiana legislature passed an act authorizing the trustees of the parish to hold a lottery to raise no more than $20,000 to build a new church. In the course of two years, $18,000 was raised and a new brick church, 85 feet long by 48 feet wide, was formally dedicated on October 25, 1828 by Fr. Jean Baptiste Blanc.

On March 17, 1838, a fire broke out in the home next to the church. The blaze consumed the roof and the interior of the church leaving only the four brick walls. The pews and other objects salvaged from the wreckage were stored in the new Lecomte town house where mass was offered. Reconstruction efforts were finally completed by 1842.

By 1853, when the new Bishop of Natchitoches was installed on Sunday, December 11, the Cathedral church in Natchitoches was a wreck. The fire-damaged walls were now over twenty years old and the front façade was in danger of falling in under the weight of the steeple. The heavy slate covered roof leaked with every rain. Bishop Martin knew that in order to find men and materials for his new diocese, he would have to turn to France for aid. In May of 1854, he sailed for France where he recruited young priests and seminarians from his native Brittany. On August 6, he was received by his Holiness Pope Pius IX. At Bishop Martin’s request the Holy Father placed the Cathedral church in Natchitoches under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary with St. Francis of Assisi as secondary patron. Pope Pius also granted special indulgences “in perpetuity” to the faithful in north Louisiana who would pray each year for the intentions of the Pope on the anniversary of the erection of the diocese on the feast of St. Francis and on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The Holy Father also presented the missionary bishop with an inscribed leather-bound set of the roman Pontificals. Cardinal Fransconi gave a generous monetary gift to help defray the costs of ornamenting the cathedral. Bishop Martin used some of these funds to purchase a throne and small organ before returning to his diocese.

In 1857, despite lack of funds, Bishop Martin solicited plans for a new cathedral. In 1856, the steeple was removed from the existing church to relieve the pression on the front façade and the walls on all fours sides had to be buttressed to keep them from falling.

On December 12, 1857, Bishop Martin approved plans for a new church submitted by Mr. W.C. Melvin. His design called for a substantial brick edifice, 140 feet long by 80 feet wide, laid out in the form of a Latin cross and fronted by two towers. The “head and arms” of the cross, the sanctuary and transepts, would occupy the location of the present church which would be demolished only when construction allowed for mass to be said in the new nave. The new front façade with its two towers would face Second Street. The new church was to be built in a modified Gothic style with Norman-styled rounded arches and windows. 

The specifications called for some modern innovations. The sash-weighted windows were to be built into cast-iron frames. The freestanding pillars supporting the ceiling of the nave and side aisle were also to be of cast-iron. The plans called for a clock to be placed in one of the towers both of which were to be topped with cast-iron crosses. Lightning rods were to be attached to the towers and on the pediments of the transepts. A dome was to be built at the intersection of the nave and transepts and two sacristies were to be place on either side of the enlarged sanctuary. Total cost was estimated at $25,000.

Construction began in August 19, 1858 and by February, 1859 the columns and framework of the nave were up and the two towers stood at a height of 50 feet. At the end of May, 1860, the altar and sanctuary furnishings were removed from the old church and placed in the new unfinished nave. The first mass in the new church was celebrated on Pentecost Sunday. By the end of the year all available funds were exhausted and work on the church came to a close. The front façade with its two towers and a large portion of the nave were finished and roofed but the foundations for the transepts, the dome and the sanctuary with its two sacristies had not been laid. A wooden wall was erected across the back of the unfinished church to keep out the weather. War and invasion coupled with economic depression and civil unrest delayed further construction for the next 30 years. Bishop Martin died on September 29, 1875, and was buried in front of the Blessed Mother’s altar.

In 1885, Bishop Antoine Durier was installed as the third Bishop of Natchitoches. Born in St. Bonnet des Quarts, a little village near Lyons in 1833, Antoine Durier had volunteered for service in the New Orleans archdiocese under Archbishop Blanc while still a seminarian at St. Irenaeus in Lyons. Ordained a priest in Cincinnati in 1856, Father Durier studied English in Chillicothe, Ohio before reporting as a curate at the cathedral in New Orleans in 1857. In 1859 he was assigned as pastor of the Church of the Annunciation. He was consecrated Bishop in St. Louis Cathedral on March 19, 1885. In an unusual pre-consecration pastoral letter to the clergy and laity of his new diocese, he asked that no large celebrations be planned but instead he asked the faithful to offer Holy Communion for him and for pastors to encourage those who had not made their Easter duties to do so and that those adults who had not made their first communion to do so now at the request of their new bishop.

During his 19-year tenure, Bishop Durier completed the work begun by Bishop Martin. The original plans for the Cathedral church were cut down. The transepts were never built and the nave remained the same in length. The sanctuary was placed under the dome. Using his own savings and moneys gained through the sale of the former Sacred Heart Convent and its lands and by means of a heavy-handed form of conscription, Bishop Durier was able to finish the construction and decoration of his cathedral. When his own funds ran out, Bishop Durier solicited funds and sacred items from his priests and foreign former parishioners. In personal letters he stated quite bluntly what he wanted each recipient to donate and what it would cost. In this way, Father Gustav Rouxel, who later would become auxiliary Bishop of New Orleans in 1899 and who had succeeded Father Durier as pastor of the Church of the Annunciation, came to donate the new high altar in 1891 at a cost of $500. The accompanying windows depicting adoring angels were ordered from Austria and paid for by priests of the diocese. To save money on the interior decorations, Bishop Durier directed 2 Carmelite friars serving at Holy Apostles Church on Bayou Pierre to do all the painted stencil and design work.

On September 4, 1892, Bishop Durier recorded in his sermon book

“Gloria and excelsius Deo! Our cathedral is completed, paid up and blessed; consecrated to God’s honor and glory.

The church structure is over 140 feet long and 80 feet wide. Bishop Durier died on February 28, 1904. At his request, his body was interred in the cemetery of the Daughters of the Cross in Shreveport.

Bishop Cornelius Van de Ven, a native of Oirshot in the Netherlands, was installed as the 4th Bishop of Natchitoches. on December 21, 1904, at Bishop Van de Ven’s request, on August 6, 1910, Pope St. Pius the X suppressed the See of Natchitoches and erected the Diocese of Alexandria thus raising the Church of St. Francis Xavier to the dignity of a Cathedral. On October 14th, Bishop Martin’s throne and prie-dieu were removed from the Natchitoches church.

In those difficult days of transition, the Church of the Immaculate Conception was served by a devoted pastor, Father Antoine Piegay, a native of St. Didier the Riviere in France, served as both curate and pastor of the Natchitches church from 1887 until 1932. He oversaw the addition of the stained glass windows in the nave and in the base of the dome throughout the 1910s. Each window cost around $150.00. For all his work and efforts on behalf of the faith, Father Piegay was honored with the rank and title of Monsignor in 1921. He served as Vicar General of the diocese from 1905 until his death on November 1, 1939.

As the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Diocese of Natchitoches came round in 1953, some talk was raised about the possibility of building a new church. The sisters of Divine Providence recorded the uproar in their “family circular”

“Anyone who knows how deeply rooted tradition is in the people of Natchitoches will appreciate the position of the pastor of one year who is trying to get them to tear down the old church and build a new one. What a stream of protest! The Civil War could hardly have surpassed the surprised indignation.”

In 1955 and 1956, Immaculate Conception Church was completed, restored, and redecorated at a cost of $75,000 under the direction of Msgr.Stanley J. DeKeuwer. A new vestibule was added together with a central air conditioning and heating system.

Forty years later the church was again restored. Architectural historians and church interior specialists from New York were retained for the project which aimed at restoring the church as closely as possible to its 1982 condition. Over $1.2 million were raised under Father Kenneth Roy to provide the church with state-of-the-art systems for air conditioning, lighting and sound. A new roof and drainage system were installed.

In 2003 as part of the Sesquicentennial celebration marking the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Diocese of Natchitoches, Bishop Sam Jacobs designated the Church of the Immaculate Conception as a “Proto-parish” in the Diocese of Alexandria. Bishop Anthony Mancini, titular Bishop of Natchitoches, was present for the mass and ceremonies marking the anniversary.

In 2006, Immaculate Conception Church observed the 150th anniversary of its construction. a new marble mensa for the altar of sacrifice was imported from Italy and was solemnly consecrated by Bishop Ronald Herzog on October 22, 2006. First-class relics of Saint Pius X, Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton and Therese of Lisieux were sealed in the altar. Bishop Mancini, titular Bishop of Natchitoches, announced the decree of the Holy See designating the Church of the Immaculate Conception as an Indult Church commensurate with the basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome.

Three years later, on February 22, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI, at the request of Bishop Ronald Herzog, honored the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Natchitoches with the rank and title of Minor Basilica in virtue of its being

“for all Louisiana in the United States a head and mother”.

On January 10, 2010, Bishop Herzog, together with bishops from throughout the province, received the symbols of the new basilica and set up its coat of arms.

The little church which Bishop Martin planned and Bishop Durier finished has not only survived war, flood, and famine, it has served as a sign and source of strength and continuity for the faithful of north Louisiana for over 150 years. In season and out of season, the shadow of its domes continue to shape these ancient streets and the chime of its bells mark the passage of time into eternity for the people of Natchitoches and thousands who make their way here each year