Church
St. Louis Cathedral
615 Pere Antoine Alley, New Orleans, LA 70116, USA
Twin-towered Spanish colonial cathedral rebuilt after fire, its beloved priest buried inside the sanctuary.
This guide to St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans centers on Pere Antoine, a Spanish Capuchin priest who arrived in the city in 1774 as an officer of the Inquisition and somehow became its favorite clergyman instead. It follows his decades-long standoff with the bishops Rome kept sending to rein him in, including one who fled the city entirely rather than fight him for control, and his quiet ministry to prisoners and the enslaved, among them a young Marie Laveau. Listen for how a man nobody in Rome could manage still seems reluctant to hand the place over.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.