Joseph Rummel


Joseph Francis Rummel was a German-born American Catholic prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Omaha in Nebraska from 1928 to 1935 and as archbishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans in Louisiana from 1935 to 1964.
Rummel is best known for excommunicating several Catholics who vocally opposed his racial desegregation of parochial schools in the archdiocese.

Biography

Early life

Joseph Rummel was born in the village of Steinmauern in the Grand Duchy of Baden, German Empire, on October 14, 1876. His family immigrated to the United States when he was six-years-old. Like many recent German immigrants, the Rummels settled in the Yorkville District of Manhattan in New York City.
Rummel attended St. Boniface Parochial School, then went to St. Mary's College, a Redemptorist minor seminary in North East, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire in 1889. Rummel was then sent to study in Rome.

Priesthood

Rummel was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of New York at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome by Cardinal Pietro Respighi on May 24, 1902. Rummel returned to New York City and served as a parish priest in several parishes for the next 25 years.

Bishop of Omaha

Rummel was named the fourth bishop of Omaha by Pope Pius XI on March 30, 1928. He was consecrated on May 29, 1928, at St. [Patrick's Cathedral |St. Patrick's Cathedral] in New York City by Cardinal Patrick Hayes.

Archbishop of New Orleans

Rummel was named by Pius XI as the ninth archbishop of New Orleans on March 9, 1935. He succeeded Archbishop John Shaw. Rummel became archbishop during the Great Depression of the 1930s. At the time, New Orleans was rapidly urbanizing as farmers flocked to the city in search of factory jobs. Also, recent European immigrants, many of whom were Catholic, were also settling in the city. Over the next thirty years, the Catholic population in the archdiocese would double to over 762,000, and the number of students in Catholic schools grew from fewer than 40,000 to over 85,000.
During Rummel's episcopacy, 45 new church parishes were created throughout the archdiocese, increasing the number of parishes from 135 to 180. In 1945 he launched the Youth Progress Program, a major initiative to raise money for the expansion of the parochial school system. This program resulted in the construction of 70 new Catholic schools, including several new high schools.
In 1935, Rummel mandated the creation of CCD programs in every parish. He streamlined the accounting procedures of the archdiocese. He also created new lay organizations to support an expansion of the many charity programs within the archdiocese.

The desegregation of the archdiocese

Rummel spent most of his tenure in New Orleans expanding the parochial school system. However, he is perhaps best remembered for his controversial decision to desegregate the archdiocese, including the Catholic schools. All of the Southern states, including Louisiana and the city of New Orleans, had been racially segregated by law since the Reconstruction Era ended in the 1870s. Like the rest of the city, parishes and schools within the archdiocese were also segregated. The community had accepted segregation as a normal part of life.
The city of New Orleans has always had a large population of black Catholics. Previous archbishops, such as Francis Janssens and James Blenk, established dedicated schools for black children in an attempt to improve the educational opportunities for black parishioners. But the segregated parochial school system suffered from the same problems with underfunding and low standards as the segregated public school system. No archbishop attempted to desegregate the archdiocese until the American Civil Rights Movement began after the end of the Second World War.
Once the movement did begin, Rummel embraced the cause of racial equality. He admitted two black students to the Notre Dame Seminary in 1948. He ordered the removal of "white" and "colored" signs from churches in 1951. That year he opened Saint Augustine High School, run by the Josephites as the first high school dedicated to the higher education of young black men in the history of the archdiocese.
In 1953, Rummel issued "Blessed Are the Peacemakers", the pastoral letter that officially ordered the end to racial segregation in the entire archdiocese:

The letter was read in every church in every parish of the archdiocese. Some parishioners organized protests against the diocesan order. Rummel closed a church in 1955 when its members began protesting the assignment of a black priest to their parish.He issued another pastoral letter the following year, reiterating the incompatibility of segregation with the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

Most parishioners reluctantly accepted the desegregation of parishes, but school desegregation was a very different matter. The United States Supreme Court issued its Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision on May 17, 1954, declaring segregated schools unconstitutional and reversing all state laws that had established them.
The Louisiana State Legislature promptly passed Act 555 and Act 556, protecting its segregated public school system from being dismantled by the Supreme Court. Both acts were rendered unconstitutional by Judge J. Skelly Wright, a federal judge from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans, in the case Earl Benjamin Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board in February 1956. Nevertheless, the Orleans Parish School Board and neighboring parish school boards vowed to postpone desegregating their public schools indefinitely.
Rummel praised Brown v. Board of Education, but he was reluctant to desegregate his own parochial school system. He had announced his intention to desegregate the Catholic schools as early as 1956. However, most archdiocesan parish school boards had voted against desegregation. After Bush v. Parish School Board, some parents had transferred their students from public schools to parochial schools to avoid desegregation. A few local Catholics sent a petition to Pope Pius XII, requesting a papal decree supporting segregation. The pope responded by describing racism as a major evil.
There was also a very real threat that the State Legislature would withhold funding from parochial schools if they desegregated. The State of Louisiana funded free textbooks, reduced-price lunches, and free buses for all students in the state, even students attending parochial schools. This was a legacy of Louisiana Governor Huey Long's Share Our Wealth program.
But by 1962, Judge Wright had issued a barrage of court orders neutralizing the Orleans Parish School Board's attempts at evading the Supreme Court. A handful of black students were already being admitted into previously all-white public schools. Rummel formally announced the end of segregation in the New Orleans parochial school system on March 27, 1962. The 1962–1963 school year would be the first integrated school year in the history of the archdiocese.
White segregationists were outraged. Politicians organized "Citizens' Councils", held public protests, and initiated letter writing campaigns. Parents threatened to transfer their children to public schools or even boycott the entire school year. Rummel issued numerous letters to individual Catholics, pleading for their cooperation and explaining his decision. He even went so far as to threaten opponents of desegregation with excommunication, the most severe censure of the Church. The threats were enough to convince most segregationist Catholics into standing down. Nevertheless, some parishioners continued to organize protests.
On April 16, 1962, the Monday before Easter, Rummel excommunicated three local Catholics for defying the authority of the Church and organizing protests against the archdiocese.The first of the three was Judge Leander Perez, a parish judge from St. Bernard Parish, who called on Catholics to withhold donations to the archdiocese and to boycott Sunday church collections. The second was Jackson G. Ricau, a political commentator, segregationist writer, and director of the "Citizens Council of South Louisiana". The third was Una Gaillot, a mother of two, housewife, and president of "Save Our Nation Inc."The excommunications made national headlines and had the tacit support of Pope John XXIII. Perez and Ricau were reinstated into the Catholic Church after they made public retractions.
A few months later, the 1963 school year began in September 1962. A handful of black students were admitted to previously all-white Catholic schools. Earlier threats of boycotts and mass student transfers to public schools never materialized. No violence took place between whites and the black students. Parents and students grudgingly surrendered to Rummel's decision, and racial segregation in the archdiocese quietly faded from memory.

Second Vatican Council, failing health and later life

By October 1962, Rummel was eighty-six years old, in declining health, and almost completely blind from glaucoma. Nevertheless, he left New Orleans for Vatican City to attend the first session of the Second Vatican Council.
In October 1960, at age 83, Rummel broke an arm and a leg in a fall, after which he nearly died from pneumonia. Rummel recovered and continued to serve as archbishop for another four years, but his health was a recurring concern. The Vatican assigned him a coadjutor archbishop, John Cody, in 1961, to assist with administering the archdiocese. The archdiocese opened four high schools in 1962:
Joseph Rummel died in New Orleans on November 9, 1964, at the age of 88. He was succeeded by Cody, his coadjutor archbishop. Rummel is interred under the sanctuary at Saint Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter. Archbishop Rummel High School in Metairie is named after him.