Redemptorists to Celebrate 80 Years of Serving Baton Rouge Area

On Oct. 20, the Redemptorists congregation will celebrate its rich 80-year history of mission work in the Diocese of Baton Rouge of serving and proclaiming the Gospel to the poor and spiritually abandoned. The event begins with a Mass at 10 a.m. at St. Gerard Majella Church in Baton Rouge.

St. Alphonsus Liguori founded the Redemptorists, officially named the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, in November of 1732 in Scala, Italy.  

Redemptorists priests serve parishes and shrines, minister to immigrants, preach parish missions and retreats, promote devotion to Our Mother of Perpetual Help, and evangelize through traditional preaching and social media. They minister in more than 100 countries,  are dedicated to missionary work, and have opened parishes and schools, often teaching immigrants the English language. 

The Redemptorists founded St. Gerard parish in 1944, covering a semi-wilderness area of about 350 square miles, just as the Second World War was ending.  Its first pastor was the Very Reverend Paul J. Baudry CSsR. A multi-purpose building was completed in 1946 to serve as both school and temporary church. The School Sisters of Notre Dame arrived in 1945 and served St. Gerard School until the 1984–85 school year.
Top right photo: First Redemptorist Community
Above Photo: 1988 Father Seelos Mass 
The archive records of St. Gerard states: "St. Gerard's, together with the mission stations, embraces about 350 square miles from east to west. The new house and church and school will be centrally located in this area. The home parish is approximately three miles from north to south and about four miles from east to west. The missions are: St. John's at Zachary, fifteen miles distant, with 120 souls; St. Isidore at Baker, six miles distant, with 150 souls; St. Francis' (now St. Alphonsus Church) thirteen miles distant, with 175 souls. The Greenwell Springs Tubercular Sanatorium, also under the spiritual care of the Fathers at Gerard's, is twenty-eight miles distant. In the parish proper, there are some 500 families ... .”

The Redemptorists also served Our Lady of Perpetual Help at Harding Field, then an Army Air Corps installation, and St. Charles Borromeo Church in Baton Rouge until it closed in 1999 due to the declining Catholic population in the area.

The church, which now faces Plank Road, was dedicated on October 16, 1958. 

“Our church is considered a missionary church,” said St. Gerard pastor Father Tat Hoang CSsR. “We are here to support the diocese. We are here to support the people and that is the wish of Bishop (Michael G.) Duca. And that’s why we put a lot of energy into the school because when we took care of the students, we took care of not one generation, but of many generations. If we do right with them, their future will be bright and the future will be bright.”
Photo taken during the dedication of the Madonna Center in 1963Redemptorist St. Gerard School, which is a vibrant part of the St. Gerard community, is a vineyard the Redemptorists diligently tend. 

The students themselves infuse the clergy, staff, and others with energy. Father Hoang’s face glowed with enthusiasm as he showed a video of the children gathering in a circle for prayer before the school’s weekly Friday Mass, which the students enthusiastically participate in and look forward too.

“They’re amazing,” smiled Father Hoang.

He noted that people from all over the diocese support the parish and school, through its tutoring program and other ways. For these people, even if they were former parishioners who moved away, St. Gerard is still “home.”

“From the very first days of this mission, it’s been the people, the parishioners, who have really made tremendous sacrifices to build the parish and its school and to grow the communities,” Father Hoang said. “The first sodality was formed within the first week of the founding of the parish, and before the fathers had places to stay. They slept in sacristies opened up by other clergy. It’s been a partnership from day one.”

St. Gerard’s hardworking ministry has gained the attention of the Redemptorist Province in Denver, to which St. Gerard belongs.
New Redemptorists Brothers 1996
“The local clergy have always been supportive and welcoming here in the diocese and as a superior that is something that I appreciate, said Father Kevin Zubel CSsR, superior of the Redemptorists’ Denver province. He had formerly served as a local superior and chaplain for the Hispanic Apostolate in Baton Rouge from 2020-2022. “Because of this I have confidence that our conference has the support of the bishop and the local clergy.”

Father Zubel noted that to grow in unity the Redemptorists province is restructuring and reconfiguring its mission with other provinces in the United States and Mexico.

“As we approach that union, as we walk toward our fellow Redemptorists, we promote our mission here in Baton Rouge as one with tremendous opportunity,” Father Zubel said.

He added, “As small as the parish is today, its outreach is large in order of the magnitude of the number of those whose lives it touches … . This parish is a hub of activity for a number of Catholics around the diocese and around Baton Rouge, and that is something I am really proud of.”

Father Hoang and Father Zubel extended an invitation to the celebration to past and present parishioners, school alumni, and anyone who is interested in attending.

“This will be a wonderful homecoming,” said Father Hoang.
St. Gerard Aerial Photo 1946aSt. Gerard early history photoSt. Gerard Church, 2024