Order of the Day

They are a tiny community, the Sisters of the Holy Family in Compton, the farthest convent from the motherhouse in New Orleans. A shy group of eight that plays dominoes and Uno after dinner. Usually, they get attention for wearing a habit: Are you a nun? strangers ask. A Catholic nun? A black Catholic nun?

Oh, yes, Sister Angela Merici Luis will say, and she will remember the days when priests gave communion to whites first, blacks last, and when African American women were shut out of most convents. Now Luis is in her 49th year with a struggling order of African American nuns that has caught the Vatican’s eye--and Hollywood’s attention--at the same time.

This summer, the Vatican is expected to receive a key report on the proposed sainthood of the order’s founder, Mother Henriette Delille, a descendant of slaves. Delille, who died in 1862, would become the first U.S.-born black saint if the lengthy canonization process is successful. The Vatican officially opened Delille’s cause for canonization in 1989. Also this summer, to the sisters’ dismay, actress Vanessa Williams is scheduled to begin production on a TV movie about Delille’s life for the Lifetime cable network.

It’s a pivotal time in the canonization effort for Delille, who preached to slaves and other poor people in antebellum New Orleans. In Compton, the sisters, who teach at Queen of Angels Academy, pray with the students for her cause every day during the school year in the Los Angeles Archdiocese. The sisters hand out buttons: “Henriette Delille 2000.” Mostly, they fidget.

“What Henriette Delille did in her time,” Luis said, “could be compared to what Mother Teresa did in hers.”

Delille, a free person of color, gave up a privileged life to help blacks and orphans, along with the elderly, sick and poor. She founded the Sisters of the Holy Family in 1842, with the help of two friends at a time when most orders were not open to black women, said Sister Sylvia Thibodeaux, the order’s superior general in New Orleans.

“The woman who founded our order went to the poorest of the poor, and that is the legacy she left us,” Thibodeaux said. “She was the servant of slaves. You can’t get more committed than that. In no way do we want her image scarred or marred.”

This TV movie worries her. Thibodeaux said she had heard that the writers did only one weekend of research in New Orleans. How could they do justice to Delille’s life?

“It’s very wonderful that [Williams] wants to do this,” Thibodeaux said, but not now, with so much at stake. In the next month or so, Father Cyprian Davis, a Benedictine monk researching the cause for the Vatican, will write a comprehensive biography on Delille and send it to Rome for review.

Campaigning

for Sainthood

In the last 10 years, the order’s researchers have visited three countries and more than 30 archives. (Researchers donate their time and cover most of their own travel expenses; other expenses are paid for by donations earmarked for the canonization cause.)

The order, which also has missions in Texas, Washington, D.C., and Belize, began work on Delille’s behalf in the late ‘60s. Much of the early work was done by Sister Audrey Marie Detiege, who kept up her research, even after she turned blind in her last years. She died in 1991 at age 66. Thirty years ago, the sisters approached the archbishop in New Orleans for support.

“Why did you all wait so long?” he asked. “Clearly this is a life that needs to be elevated to sainthood.”

“The [sisters’] superior general answered by saying, ‘How would anyone be interested in elevating a woman of color, a black woman, to sainthood before 1960?’ ” Thibodeaux said. “Nobody ever thought we would get anywhere.”

Now they are getting somewhere, and who knows what a TV movie could do to the cause?

The sisters have called and written letters of protest to Williams, the movie’s star and co-executive producer. They want her to delay production while the canonization process is underway.

“We feel the timing is not right,” Thibodeaux said. “The [order’s] definitive biography of her life is yet to be published. Our current research disputes a lot of the information that we feel may be included in their story, from what we know.”

For instance, the movie’s working title is “The Ballroom,” referring to the parties thrown by rich white landowners before the Civil War to pick mistresses who were free women of color. Delille, who was born to a well-off family, refused to attend the balls.

“Just the name of the movie causes us to have questions,” Thibodeaux said.

Williams, a black Catholic, said she immediately sent a letter to the sisters after hearing of their concerns.

“We are doing as loving a story as we possibly can,” Williams said. “The last thing I would want to do is alienate the very women I’m trying to honor.”

Several researchers and consultants have done extensive research to make sure that the script is historically accurate, Williams said.

Three years ago, a friend showed Williams an early script for “The Ballroom.” Williams said she took on the project--her first producing effort--because she was inspired by Delille’s work. The movie is expected to air early next year.

“I certainly would hope my enthusiasm and motivation to have other people know about her would by no means jeopardize her being canonized,” Williams said. “Her story is absolutely phenomenal and inspirational. That’s why I was intrigued and motivated to try to bring it to millions of viewers. I’m happy that I have a chance to have my first production effort be connected to such a wonderful, uplifting, positive story,” Williams said. “This certainly is a television movie that I’m going to be very proud of.”

The sisters are wary, of the movie, of the road ahead. They have work to do if Delille’s cause is to proceed, if her name is to inspire young women to join and revitalize their ranks. The sisters’ median age is 67. The order is down from a total high of 400 sisters in the 1950s, to 171; in Compton, from 22 sisters to eight in the last 20 years. The ranks are shrinking at a time when the order’s visibility and prayers to Delille are crucial.

As part of the canonization effort, the sisters must document at least two miracles ascribed to Delille. One miracle could lead to beatification, in which the title “Blessed” is bestowed; a second to canonization, in which sainthood is granted. The sisters would have to gather interviews, medical records or other documents, showing that someone prayed to Delille for intervention and then experienced an act of God.

Canonization

Is an Uphill Effort

To that end, every day, in New Orleans, the sisters read letters and e-mail. The notes, about 100 a week, include requests for prayers. A prayer list is updated daily, with 40 requests or more. At 1 p.m., a group of retired sisters grabs the list and heads to the lobby of the convent’s infirmary to pray publicly for Delille’s intercession on a requester’s behalf. And then they hope for a miracle.

They know that the canonization process can drag on for decades, sometimes centuries. For instance, it took more than 800 years for Bede the Venerable to get beatified. The fastest canonization ever was for St. Theresa of Lisieux, a French Carmelite nun who was declared a saint in 1925, after a 28-year effort. The cause for canonization of Father Junipero Serra, the Franciscan friar and founder of the Catholic mission system in California, has been pending since 1934.

But the Sisters of the Holy Family say this is Delille’s time, with Pope John Paul II’s openness toward recognizing ethnic diversity in the church.

In fact, canonization efforts are underway for two other women of color: Sister Thea Bowman, of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Wisconsin, known for her work in promoting black Catholicism; and Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, a black Latina who founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence in 1828. (In the U.S., there are three orders of primarily African American women: the Oblate sisters in Baltimore, the Holy Family sisters and the Franciscan Handmaids of Mary in New York.)

Recognition of pioneering black sisters is long overdue, said Sister Patricia Chappell, president of the National Black Sisters Conference in Washington, D.C., which supports all three canonization efforts.

“These three women are black women, so, therefore, what they were doing in efforts to get the church to be open to all people of color was not popular,” Chappell said. “When you grow up in a black culture and go into a white congregation, the prayer styles, the food, everything is different. Often because the white sisters have been in the majority, they have established the norm, while black women prayed in our style--spontaneous, life-giving--that was viewed as not being Catholic.”

In Compton since the 1970s, the sisters know that some people still cannot believe they are Catholic: Maybe they are actresses, like Whoopi Goldberg? Some kind of “Sister Act”-style impostors? Sister Agrese Elayne Lafayette will be happy when Delille’s story, and the order’s history, becomes more widely known.

She pumps a fist in the air.

“I’m a Mother Delille 2000 person,” she said.

Delille is the one who drives Lafayette, in her 14th year with the order. Sometimes, Lafayette thinks of the little comforts she misses by being a nun, like wearing jeans. Then she thinks of how Delille gave up a life of comfort and shakes away any wistful thoughts.

Then there’s Sister Francis Paula Guillory. Official sainthood does not concern her.

“A papal signature doesn’t make you a saint . . . [Delille] has made tons of miracles in my eyes,” said Guillory, who joined the order 57 years ago. “When I don’t know where to turn, I say, ‘Delille, show me the way.’ I never asked her for anything I did not get. The paperwork doesn’t mean anything to me. I know she’s a saint.”

Renee Tawa can be reached at renee.tawa@latimes.com.