Henriette Delille

In 1835, her mother suffered from a severe nervous breakdown and was declared incapacitated by the courts. Henriette, appointed to manage her assets, ensured that her mother received the necessary care, then sold the remainder of her inheritance to fund her apostolate project. In 1836, with her friends Juliette Gaudin and Josephine Charles, she founded a lay association under the name of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Despite opposition from civil authorities and the initial skepticism of the local ecclesiastical hierarchy, which refused to authorize a religious congregation composed of Black women, the group persevered. In 1842, the community officially took the name of the Sisters of the Holy Family. It was the second religious congregation of women of African descent founded in the United States.

The work of the Sisters of the Holy Family focused on the most marginalized in Louisiana society: - Education: The sisters taught reading, writing, and catechism to free children of color and to the enslaved, defying the laws of the State of Louisiana that then formally prohibited the instruction of enslaved persons. - Care for the sick: During the devastating yellow fever epidemics that struck New Orleans (notably in 1853), the sisters devoted themselves tirelessly to the sick and the dying. - Assistance to the elderly: They opened a home to welcome elderly and infirm women abandoned on the streets. This work would give rise to the Lafon Nursing Facility, recognized today as the oldest Catholic nursing home for the elderly in the United States.

On October 15, 1852, Henriette Delille, Juliette Gaudin, and Josephine Charles pronounced their first public vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience at Saint Augustine Church, under the direction of Father Étienne Rousselon.

Henriette Delille died of tuberculosis on November 17, 1862, at the age of 49, in the midst of the Civil War, a few months after the capture of New Orleans by Union troops. She passed away exhausted by privations and incessant work in the service of the poor. Her obituary in the Catholic newspaper Le Propagateur Catholique testifies to the community's esteem: "for the love of Jesus Christ, she had made herself the humble servant of the slaves."

The reputation of holiness of Henriette Delille was passed down from generation to generation. In 1988, under the impetus of the Archbishop of New Orleans, Archbishop Philip Hannan, the diocesan process for her beatification was officially opened with the authorization of Pope John Paul II, conferring upon her the title of Servant of God. The diocesan inquiry, comprising nearly 6,000 pages of historical documents and testimonies, was closed in 2005 and sent to Rome for examination by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

On March 27, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI signed the decree recognizing the heroic nature of her virtues, officially proclaiming her Venerable. Henriette Delille thus became the first African American person born in the United States whose cause for canonization was officially introduced by the Catholic Church.

For her beatification to be pronounced, the official recognition of a miracle is required. A first file regarding an alleged healing was examined in 2010, but the Vatican requested additional information. In 2016, a new investigation into another alleged miracle was opened by the Diocese of Little Rock (Arkansas), which issued a decree of legal validity on December 7, 2018. This file is currently under examination by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.

Henriette Delille's spirituality is deeply Eucharistic and Marian, anchored in the imitation of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Her personal motto, written in her own hand in her prayer book, summarizes her total abandonment to the divine will: "I believe in God. I hope in God. I love. I want to live and die for God."

Her legacy is immense. By choosing to identify fully with her African roots and to serve the enslaved when she could have, thanks to her light skin, passed for white and led a comfortable life, she affirmed the divine dignity of every human being in the face of the structures of sin of her time.

Today, the Sisters of the Holy Family continue the work of their founder. Although fewer in number than at their peak in the mid-20th century, they continue to manage schools, nursing homes, and care centers in Louisiana, Texas, California, Washington D.C., as well as in Belize, testifying to the vitality of Henriette Delille's charism.