DIOCESAN NEWS
03/16/07
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Newest bishop has Jackson connections

By Christine Bordelon and
Fabvienen Taylor
      NEW ORLEANS (CNS) — As music regally heralded a procession of priests and bishops to the altar at his episcopal ordination Mass, New Orleans’ new auxiliary bishop wiped a tear while passing his mother and father, Theresa and Luke Fabre, seated in the first pew.
      “Don’t cry, son,” Theresa Fabre said she told Bishop Shelton Fabre as he walked by. “I can’t express the joy in my heart. It brought tears to my eyes.”
      The former pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Baton Rouge was consecrated an auxiliary bishop of New Orleans Feb. 28 at St. Louis Cathedral. At age 43, he is the youngest U.S. bishop and one of 10 active African-American Catholic bishops serving in the United States.
      New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes was the principal consecrator at the Mass. Bishop John Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla., who is Bishop Fabre’s cousin, and Baton Rouge Bishop Robert Muench were co-consecrators.
      Retired New Orleans Archbishops Philip Hannan and Francis Schulte, along with other bishops, concelebrated.
      “We thank God for this moment and all of you participating,” Archbishop Hughes told those gathered at the opening of the Mass, urging everyone to assist Bishop Fabre to become a “wise administrator and a holy priest.”
      “I stand before you today grateful to all those people who have comforted me,” said Bishop Fabre, who chose “Comfort my people” from Chapter 40, Verse 1 of the Book of Isaiah as his episcopal motto.
      “God has blessed me with those who have helped me become the person that I am today.”
Two people who have, at different times over the years, shared steps with the newest bishop are Sister Paulinus Oakes and Father Jeffrey Waldrep of the Diocese of Jackson.
      “Father Shelton and I did our Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) together at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge in the middle 1980s,” said the Sister of Mercy who serves as a chaplain on the North Campus of St. Dominic Memorial Hospital in Jackson.
      Sister Oakes talked as she headed down I-55 toward New Orleans on the morning of the bishop’s ordination.
      The religious sister and future bishop became fast friends over the summer. She needed the CPE to be chaplain at Mercy Hospital in Vicksburg and he, fresh from study in Europe, needed it to fulfill his preparation for becoming a priest.
      “He had all of the new theology and I felt very comfortable in a hospital setting,” she said.       The hospital held sad memories for him, she said. It was where his brother was brought and put on life support and later died from drowning.
      “Shelton was a very lovely, calm, compassionate, sharp, low-key person with a good sense of humor,” said Sister Oakes. They planned their monthly bereavement service together, she said. “We got to be real good buddies.”
      They have kept in contact over the years, she said. “He is very energetic, scholarly and pastoral. Everybody likes him. He will be a wonderful bishop. I feel great about this.”
      It was as seminarians from 1983-86 at St. Joseph Seminary in Covington, La., that Father Waldrep and the now-youngest bishop in the United States began their long friendship.
      “Shelton is kind, compassionate, and very intelligent,” said Father Waldrep, who is completing studies for the Tribunal Office in the Diocese of Jackson.
      “What I admire most about him is how he treats people, one person at a time. He is very attentive to each person he talks with, their station in life does not matter at all,” said Father Waldrep.
      The former classmates have vacationed together and helped each other move to new assignments. Father Waldrep helped the new bishop settle into New Orleans.
      Father Waldrep served as a concelebrant at the new bishop’s ordination.
      After his ordination, Bishop Fabre told those gathered: “I stand before you deeply grateful for my new family here in the Archdiocese of New Orleans and look forward to the opportunities that will come for us to worship together and get to know one another better,” he said.
      He told the congregation he could see their “resiliency of faith” in the face of their “recent struggles.”
      “It makes me immensely proud to become a part of the strong faith history of this great archdiocese,” Bishop Fabre said. “There are always graces that can be found in challenges, and I am confident that together, we will encounter God among this grace as we seek to be faithful to the Lord who has been faithful to us.”
      His family, sitting proudly in the first two pews of St. Louis Cathedral, reiterated what a treasure New Orleans has in Bishop Fabre.
      “He’s always guided me when I had any questions about faith,” nephew Boris Fabre said.       “He was always the first person I would go to.”
      “I always knew he would be a priest,” said his older sister, Diane Signater, 55, who drove from Morganza to attend the ordination with her husband, Lionel, and her children.
      “We thank the Lord he was chosen. Shelton is very patient and kind. He will be a bishop of the people; somebody who can bring the community together,” she said. “A lot of people have come to listen to him that were not Catholic and then became Catholic. He is full of wisdom. New Orleans needs him.”
      Archbishop Hughes lauded Bishop Fabre for answering God’s call to the priesthood and encouraged him to look for God’s grace to find the courage and a “father’s self-sacrificial love and care for his family” that is needed to fulfill his mission as a bishop.
      “You come to episcopal life and ministry with a lively faith, a keen intellect, a compassionate heart and richly varied pastoral experience,” Archbishop Hughes told the new bishop. “You now receive a deeper and fuller responsibility to proclaim God’s word in season and out of season. I hope you learned from your mother, who was a good teacher.”
      The archbishop also alluded to Bishop Fabre’s father being a bricklayer to further emphasize the task before him.
      “You are now to build up God’s church, not with lifeless bricks, but the living stones of God’s people,” he said. “Help us to become one people across racial, ethnic and economic lines founded on the cornerstone who is Christ. ... Help us to be a church truly welcoming of all people to a common faith, hope and love. Comfort a people devastated by tragedy but anchored in a hope that comes from the Lord.”
      When leaving the altar at the ordination’s conclusion, Archbishop Hughes teased Bishop Fabre when he almost forgot his crosier. “You will learn these things,” he said with a smile.

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