Joseph Rummel

Rummel is best known for excommunicating several Catholics who vocally opposed his racial desegregation of parochial schools in the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Joseph Rummel was born in the village of Steinmauern in the Grand Duchy of Baden, German Empire (in what is today Germany), on October 14, 1876.

[1] Rummel attended St. Boniface Parochial School, then went to St. Mary's College, a Redemptorist minor seminary in North East, Pennsylvania.

[5] Rummel was named the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Omaha by Pope Pius XI on Mar.

At the time, New Orleans was rapidly urbanizing as farmers flocked to the city in search of factory jobs.

In 1945 he launched the Youth Progress Program, a major initiative to raise money for the expansion of the parochial school system.

All of the Southern states, including Louisiana and the city of New Orleans, had been racially segregated by law since Reconstruction ended in the 1870s.

No archbishop attempted to desegregate the Archdiocese until the Civil Rights Movement began after the end of the Second World War.

Rummel closed a church in 1955 when its members began protesting the assignment of a black priest to their parish.

[1] He issued another pastoral letter the following year, reiterating the incompatibility of segregation with the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

[5][13] Rummel praised Brown v. Board of Education, but he was reluctant to desegregate his own parochial school system.

A few local Catholics sent a petition to Pope Pius XII, requesting a papal decree supporting segregation.

Rummel formally announced the end of segregation in the New Orleans parochial school system on March 27, 1962.

Politicians organized "Citizens' Councils", held public protests, and initiated letter writing campaigns.

Rummel issued numerous letters to individual Catholics, pleading for their cooperation and explaining his decision.

[5][15] 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 second was Jackson G. Ricau, 44, political commentator, segregationist writer, and director of the "Citizens Council of South Louisiana".

Parents and students grudgingly surrendered to Rummel's decision, and racial segregation in the archdiocese quietly faded from memory.