Father Paul Desrosiers, 76, cared for marginalized

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

There was little question in the months before and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that Father Paul Desrosiers, on medical leave after serving as pastor of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish in New Orleans, was close to death.

For unknown reasons, his liver was failing, and his frail body was slowly shutting down. His good friend, Cabrini parishioner Kathleen Schott, arranged for him to evacuate to Houston with her family and later flew him to his sister’s house in Rhode Island, where at least he would be out of the post-Katrina chaos.

In early 2006, when Father Desrosiers flew back to New Orleans, Schott picked him up at the airport and was struck by what she saw.

“He was really sick,” Schott said. “He even left his luggage at the airport, and we had to go back and pick it up. After that, he had so many, many emergency situations.”

Then, on June 1, 2006 – Schott remembers the date because it was her wedding anniversary –  Father Desrosiers got the call he had been praying for. A liver matching his body type was available for transplant.

“They did the surgery on the evening of June 1, 2006 – and look how long he lived,” Schott said.

Father Desrosiers, who died in his sleep Nov. 19 at age 76, beat so many medical odds that he became known among his fellow priests as the “cat with nine lives.” Doctors said his new liver was expected to give him an extra six or seven years of life.

“I saw him the week before he died, and he had been to the doctor and all of his (medical) numbers were perfect,” Schott said. 

With his health restored, Father Desrosiers served as the founding pastor of Transfiguration of the Lord Parish, which was formed in 2007 from the post-Katrina mix of St. Frances Cabrini, St. Raphael the Archangel and the UNO Newman community. He also was responsible for “transfiguring” the former St. Raphael Church, which had been swallowed up by 8 feet of water in Katrina, into a bright but understated, minimalist worship space that reflected his love of the liturgy and the value of silence and reflection.

Archbishop Gregory Aymond, who was ordained as a priest with Father Desrosiers in 1975, marveled at his seminary classmate’s resilience and his dedication to serve as a priest.

“Sometimes we say that someone has eight lives,” Archbishop Aymond said at his Funeral Mass on Nov. 29. “Well, I think Paul had nine or 10 lives as he went through the various medical difficulties and challenges that he had. But in all that, you (parishioners) were there for him and cared for him. That allowed him not only to be healed but also to continue his life and his ministry as a priest.”

Father Desrosiers, a native of Fall River, Massachusetts, was attracted to New Orleans because of the Summer Witness program, started by Archbishop Philip Hannan, which offered hands-on ministry with the poor, a precursor to his priestly ministry that always seemed to focus on the marginalized.

He attended St. Joseph Seminary College in St. Benedict and Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans and was ordained to the priesthood for the archdiocese on May 10, 1975.

He worked with the deaf community for Catholic Charities and then, in the 1980s, was pastor of Holy Trinity Church in the Bywater when the AIDS epidemic was claiming the lives of everyone who became infected. He and Franciscan Father Bob Pawell approached Archbishop Hannan to form Project Lazarus, the first Catholic-sponsored AIDS hospice in the country.

“It was obviously a big source of pride for him,” said Kurt Bindewald, a close friend and executive assistant to the provost at Loyola University New Orleans. “He often talked about the permission that Archbishop Hannan gave him to pursue it.”

“It was draining,” Schott said of Father Desrosiers’ advocacy for AIDS victims. “I remember one time he almost broke down in tears. He told me, ‘You know, the first three years, we had a 100% mortality rate. Every single person we ministered to died.’”

He served as associate pastor at St. Raphael Church in New Orleans. His pastorates were at St. Gerard Parish (for the deaf) in New Orleans; Holy Trinity in New Orleans; St. Vincent de Paul, New Orleans; Sacred Heart, Lacombe; St. Frances Cabrini, New Orleans; and after Hurricane Katrina, pastor of Transfiguration of the Lord.

In addition to these pastoral assignments, Father Desrosiers served as administrator at the Chinchuba School; pastoral director of Associated Catholic Charities; spiritual moderator of St. Vincent de Paul Society; chaplain of Ladies of Madonna; chaplain at Academy of the Sacred Heart; and board member of the National Federation of Priest Councils and the National AIDS Network.

He was dean of the Cathedral Deanery and City Park-Gentilly Deanery.

Father Michael Schneller, who delivered the homily at the Funeral Mass, cited C.S. Lewis’ observation that God “whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

“In the 1980s, God used his megaphone to shout in Paul’s ear,” Father Schneller said. “The shouting was coming for people suffering and dying from HIV-AIDS, the tsunami that was crashing ashore in every American city. The cries were coming from those whom we might name ‘Lazarus.’

“Paul did not have a business plan in responding to the cries of Lazarus and the corresponding death statistics. He had a prophetic vision. His gift of conversation and connecting with people in one-on-one relationships turned his vision into reality, and Project Lazarus was born.”

Father Schneller referred to the Gospel reading of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, who did not care for the poor. The wealthy man dies and is in torment, not only that he is separated from God but also that his five brothers might suffer the same fate unless he is allowed to go back and warn them.

“Let me suggest that Jesus told the parable of Lazarus and the rich man so that we might see ourselves in the five brothers,” Father Schneller said. “As we remember Father Paul Henry Desrosiers, let us bridge the chasm and take every opportunity to be advocates who offer hope to those whom our world calls Lazarus.”

[email protected]