Thursday, April 19, 2012

Please Pray For An Excommunicated New Orleans Catholic Woman

I highlighted this amazing picture and story at A Kneeling Racist Asks Louisiana Archbishop To Repent And Religious Liberty . At that post I also made a religious liberty point.

However as to that woman in the comments an amazing and sad fact is pointed out.

A year or two ago, I heard a historian who writes on this period (Fr. Bentley Anderson, now at Fordham) say that Una Gaillot is still alive, in her nineties, and that she has never repented or reconciled with the Church. I also found the following words from Gaillot, apparently spoken in 2004 (source: http://www.sltrib.com/faith/ci_2385771):

“Of the three, only Gaillot is still alive. She remains committed to her segregationist views and defiantly outside the church. She believes her excommunication violates church law.

It appears that she has not set foot in a Catholic church since 1962.

Although she is close to her children, she refused to attend her sons’ weddings, she said. She watched one son’s ceremony through a church’s rear double doors held open for a mother’s benefit.
She will not give in. But defiance takes its toll, she acknowledged. ‘If you only knew how hard it is. It used to be harder; it’s starting to help.’

‘But Good Friday,’ – she hesitated, tearing up – ‘Damn, Good Friday’s hard. And Easter Sunday. Those two days are hard. Because I can’t go to church.’

How amazing and how sad. Also how frightening this is since she well could "go" at anytime. I just said a short prayer that this post will be spread. I think Catholics , of all races , should really pray for Mrs Gailliot right now. I just can't imagine this. Rosaries, Novenas, Time in front of the Blessed Sacrament, Divine Mercy Chaplets etc. We should really pull out all the stops

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