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Cajun French Mass, tool for preserving Acadian culture, will be held Monday in Raceland

Colin Campo
Daily Comet

The Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux is honoring Cajun culture next week by holding its yearly French Mass.

The Diocese has held a service where both the music and the sermons are held in Cajun French since the mid-2000s, according to the Director of the Diocesan Office of Worship the Rev. Glenn LeCompte.

The Mass will be at 6 p.m. Monday at St. Hilary Catholic Church, 333 Twin Oaks Drive, Raceland.

LeCompte said the purpose of the Mass in French is to celebrate and recognize the dignity of the Acadian people.

The goal is also to help revive a culture that was stolen between the expulsion of the Acadians and later Louisiana laws that affected their descendants.

St. Hilary Catholic Church in Raceland will host a French-language Mass on Monday.

"For example, I was a victim of that whole thing, my parents were bilingual, but they didn't teach it to us because of the after-effects of that law, so I felt kind of robbed," said LeCompte. "I'm robbed of the experience of teaching what is really a beautiful dialect of French."

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That dialect is distinct from mainstream French as spoken in France.

Nicholls State University Director for Bayou Studies, Dr. Gary Lafleur, said the French language in Paris was ever-changing with the newest words and slang. Those of the Nova Scotia clung to the old language, and even after 100 years it was very different. 

"Already that means when those Acadians came to Louisiana in the Grand Dérangement, they were already talking an older-style French," said LaFleur. "And then those people moved into the countryside of Louisiana, where they were further isolated."

The Acadian language took a second blow in 1921, when the Louisiana Legislature decided that schools could no longer be taught in French, LeCompte said.

Churchgoers dressed as Acadians walk down the aisle of St. Hilary's as part of the annual French Mass, dedicated to Acadian Culture, Aug. 15, 2019.

"I don't know if there is a one-for-one correlation to that with the stories we hear of people being punished for speaking French," said LeCompte. "I'm guessing that what happened was as administrators and teachers had to apply that law not only were they teaching in English in class, but they were forbidding students for speaking French in school because they wanted them to learn English."

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LeCompte said he obtained copies of liturgical books from French Canada to carry out the service. It will be a celebration of solemnity — the highest rank a celebration can have in the Catholic tradition — and will be for the assumption of Mary.

"What we believe in that celebration is that Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the moment of her death was assumed body and soul into heaven," explained LeCompte. "The reason we are celebrating this Mass on this day is because in the late 19th century, the International Acadian Congress voted that day as the patron feast of the Acadian people.

"I guess you could say Mary is the patron saint of the Acadian people."