Canonization process begins for La. priest who saved POWs

“Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.”
These words from John 13:12-17 were a command from Jesus Christ after he washed the feet of His apostles. Throughout the centuries since this command was given, countless faithful have selflessly devoted their time, treasure, and talents to serve others. Many of them have been recognized for their service by being canonized a saint.
Seventy-six years ago, a Ville Platte native, the Rev. Verbis LaFleur, gave up his life while following Christ’s command as a prisoner of war during World War II. For his actions, the process of canonization has begun and has cleared another step as the bishops of the United States have voted to advance the cause of sainthood.
Diocese of Lafayette spokesperson Blue Rolfes said the vote is part of the first phase of the canonization process. During this phase, the bishop where the canonization effort originates must consult the local diocese, their conference of bishops and the Congregation for Saints Causes in Rome for approval to begin formal investigations.
“The people of Louisiana and the Diocese of Lafayette are most pleased to have had a priest who so completely exuded the virtue of charity and lived as an example of Christ,” Lafayette Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel said in prepared remarks.
LaFleur was the fourth of eight children born to Valentine LaFleur and Agatha Dupre and received the three Sacraments of Initiation as well as First Confession at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church in Ville Platte.
“Everyone at Sacred Heart is overjoyed at the U.S. bishops’ vote to approve the cause for Father Verbis LaFleur’s canonization,” said the Rev. Tom Voorhies, pastor of Sacred Heart. “It is an important step in the process.
“Father LaFleur was an altar server here until moving to Opelousas. We also have his chalice, so this is a great day for all of us and the whole Diocese of Lafayette.”
Voorhies went on to explain the canonization process.
“The bishop has to open up his own investigation in the Diocese of Lafayette, and once that is completed, then he can present it to Rome,” he said. “The pope would then have to declare him a person of virtue, then venerable, then beatified. Then you would need a miracle for beatification and then another miracle for canonization. Or, if the pope should say that he was a martyr for charity and for the faith, the pope could dispense with the need for any miracles and just say he’s a saint.”
LaFleur’s family moved to Opelousas when he was 14-years-old and became parishioners of St. Landry Church where he celebrated his first solemn Mass three days after his ordination.
He served as a priest at St. Mary Magdalen Church in Abbeville before he felt the call to join the United States Army roughly six months before the U.S. entered World War II. His first assignment was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, before being reassigned to Clark Field in the Philippines.
The Japanese attacked the field on Dec. 8, 1941, a day after they had bombed Pearl Harbor.
Mark Kelso, of Gavelston, Texas, is the grandson of a soldier who was in the 19th Bomb Group where Lafleur served as chaplain.
“He trained in Albuquerque with my grandfather,” Kelso said. “They were both officers before the war and left on the same ship for Manila in The Philippines in October, 1941. They went to Mindanao together on the S.S. Mayon and were captured there together.”
The two became prisoners of war.
“After two years at Davao in the same barracks next to the mess hall,” Kelso said, “Father LaFleur went to Lasang, and my grandfather ended up back in Luzon at Cabanatuan.”
Later, LaFleur, along with 700 other prisoners, wase being transported by ship from an airfield in the jungle to another Japanese occupied island. This ship was struck by an U.S. Armed Forces torpedo and began to sink. LaFleur began pushing his fellow prisoners through the hatch to safety, risking his own life as the ship began to sink. He perished with the ship Sept. 7, 1944.
“For my family, it would be wonderful,” Kelso said of the possible canonization of LaFleur. “It would really be something if my grandfather’s chaplain would be canonized.”
A year after LaFleur died, his nephew, Richard, was born.
“Richard’s second-to-oldest aunt lived in New Orleans,” said Richard’s wife Carrol. “She was an R.N., and her name was Edna. Aunt Edna never had any children and is the one who made sure to write the two little books.”
The books are "Man Among Men" and "The Roses Have Crossed to the Other Side."
Carrol went on to say, “(Aunt Edna) always made sure that her nieces and nephews had those books and they knew about Father LaFleur.”
Interest in LaFleur was renewed in 2000 when Carrol’s father-in-law passed away and family members were going through items in his house.
“My father-in-law’s house was the house that Grandma LaFleur lived in when she moved to Opelousas from Ville Platte,” Carrol said. “Grandma LaFleur was Father LaFleur’s mother, and there was a sizable stack of papers in the closet. There were papers that Fr. LaFleur had written while he was in the seminary, letters to his mother and sisters, and letters people wrote to Grandma LaFleur after the war.”
After those documents were found, Carrol and Richard began working to drum up support for canonization efforts.
“That’s when everything started for us,” Carrol said. “It’s just grown and grown, and people from all over have helped us. That’s why we are at this point now. We are thankful for all of these people and thankful for God for connecting us to all of these people.”
“The people have inspired us to continue,” Carrol went on to say. “It feels like every time we were in doubt there was a little something that happened or somebody who came forth who sparked us to continue on and do a little bit more.”
The efforts of Carrol and Richard are paying dividends now that the bishops have advanced the cause of Fr. LaFleur.
“That is unbelievable,” she said. “That’s just amazing to us. As far as I know, this is the first native Louisianan to be honored with such greatness.”
Admittedly, though, Carrol has done everything for selfish reasons.
“I do this selfishly because I want my children and my grandchildren and the children who go beyond them to know Father LaFleur and to know what he did for God and for his country. They know they have a little bit of that same blood that Father LaFleur had.”
Father LaFleur is up for canonization with two other natives of south Louisiana in Charlene Richard and Auguste “Nonco” Pelafigue. For Carrol, having these three is a testament to the struggles people endured years ago in this part of the state.
“I think about my children and how difficult it was,” she said. “I think about my parents and how they struggled, and my grandmother and them who were tenant farmers. Her husband died in his early 40s. They struggled to make a meager living, but they were satisfied with what they had and with what God gave them. They were thankful for the little they had.”
Carrol continued, “I think that’s what sprouted up three potential candidates for sainthood. It’s truly a blessing.”
The Rev. Mitch Guidry, who is pastor of Our Lady, Queen of All Saints Catholic Church in Ville Platte and an Acadia Parish native like Charlene Richard, said of LaFleur’s vote, “In these days, the Catholic priesthood has been put in bad favor because of the sins of some evil men who abused their position as priests to harm others, especially the young, to whom they should have been an inspiration and example.
“The Church and the world need the heroic witness of priests like Father LaFleur who inspire us by their devotion to Christ, their service to others, and their willingness to sacrifice absolutely everything, even their own lives as Christ did, in exchange for the good of souls.
“Priests and seminarians studying for the priesthood also need the inspiration and example of strong, Godly men like Father LaFleur who, by their lives and deaths, remind us of Christ’s words, ‘no servant is greater than his Master.’”