St. Genevieve Church

St. Genevieve Church is a parish of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans located along the northeastern edge of Lake Ponchartrain in Slidell, Louisiana, United States. St. Genevieve is one of eight parishes which belongs to Deanery XII - East St. Tammany - Washington Deanery, an ecclesiastical division of the archdiocese.HistoryIntroductionOn December 28, 1958, the then new St. Genevieve Church at Bayou Liberty (Bayou Bonfouca), a mission of Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Slidell, was dedicated by Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel. The occasion recalled the fascinating history of the region, which its famous poet-priest and missioner to the Choctaws, Abbé Adrien Rouquette, described below:Dedication of the new Chapel of St. Genevieve revives memorable figures and events of more than a century ago. The pioneer brick church is inextricably linked with Choctaw Indians, the Cousin family, Abbé Adrian Rouquette — Louisiana's famous poet-priest — and his brother, Dominique, another great poet, and several famous missionary priests, who labored devotedly in this section of St. Tammany Parish.Both the pioneer Creole priest of Louisiana, classical poet, missionary among the Choctaw Indians, and his happy-go-lucky brother, "old Jupiter in a black blanket," as Mrs. Dagmar Renshaw LeBreton styles him in her splendid volume Chaht a-Ima — Dominique, who was a master of lyric poetry — made Bonfouca their haunt. Here, too, Abbé Rouquette drew religious inspiration as well as poetical visions, while Dominique found peace from the demands of life, but likewise beautiful concepts that he embodied in his poems.