Church of the Immaculate Conception - New Orleans, LA
Posted by: JimmyEv
N 29° 57.239 W 090° 04.269
15R E 782673 N 3317295
Set in the middle of a city block, this Jesuit Catholic church, with its Moorish archways and domes framed by dark red-brick, sports bronze doors of Moorish geometric architecture. Each door weighs 1500 pounds.
Waymark Code: WM19N7
Location: Louisiana, United States
Date Posted: 03/06/2007
Views: 139
In that mix of religion and government that marked the world before Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and others separated them, the French government relied heavily upon the Catholic order of the Jesuits to settle and develop French America. Throughout the French territories they established missions to protect French settlers and convert natives. The Ursuline Sisters, contributing so much social welfare to early New Orleans, operated under the auspices of the Jesuits. The Jesuits developed a large plantation on the land that would one day become the American Sector.
By the mid 18th-century the Jesuits had fallen out of favor with both the French government and Rome. All of their properties in French America, including their New Orleans plantation, were seized by the French government. The priests themselves were shipped back to France.
It wasn’t until 1837 that the Jesuits made their way back to New Orleans, this time an American city, and their mission neither supported by, nor interfered with, by the government. On this site, where their order once owned a plantation, they founded both a church and a college: the Church of the Immaculate Conception and the College of the Immaculate Conception.
The current church was built in 1930. Islamic design was incorporated into the building, with domes and soaring interiors. Statues of Jesus, St. Mary, St. Joseph, St. Louis and St. Ignatius were placed inside the pilings of the structure. The College of the Immaculate Conception relocated, splitting into both Jesuit High School and Loyola University.