Neithart, C.SS.R., Father Benedict A., New Orleans, Louisiana, to Bishop Francis Xavier Leray, 1881 June 10

Neithart writes at the request of their Provincial, Father Nicholas Jaeckel, C.SS.R. who has learnt that the Ladies of the Sacred Heart propose to establish an academy in or near their parish of St. Alphonsus. Such a measure would not be desirable because 1 they already have two teaching sisterhoods; the Lazarists in Bouligny have the Sisters of Charity and the Dominican Nuns in Greenville, and Father J.B. Simon wants no sisters at all in his parish; 2 their parish schools are only half full and swallow up annually several thousand dollars of the Church revenues; and 3 neither they nor the Lazarists could furnish a chaplain. They already have four sisterhoods for whom they say Mass and the Lazarists have three. Another matter is that there should be another church between them and the Lazarists in Bouligny. The Redemptorists would be ready to build a little frame church and school, provided a convenient locality could be agreed upon, on or near Louisiana Avenue which belongs to Father John B. Bogaerts and the Lazarists of Bouligny. There is the Gordian knot they cannot cut, except with the consent of the ordinary and the Bouligny pastors. :: VI-3-c A.L.S. 3pp. 12mo. 10