Praying for the “Little Cajun Saint”

By: CLAUDETTE OLIVIER
LSN Editor

RICHARD — Cold weather did not keep the faithful from praying for — and to — their “The Little Cajun Saint” as the process for the Cause for Canonization of Charlene Richard moves forward.
John Dale Richard, brother to Charlene, spoke to the crowd of faithful who gathered in an outdoor area at St. Edward Church in Richard on Saturday, Jan. 13, for a ceremony to officially close the diocesan phase of the process for the Cause for Canonization for Servant of God Richard. The ceremony marked a major step on the path towards possible sainthood for Richard.
The day also marked what would have been Charlene’s 77th birthday.
“In the beginning, it was not easy for us to accept all of the attention,” he said. “It was also hard because, when you have a saint in your family, people want you to be as holy as they are.”
The crowd chuckled at Richard’s statement.
He continued, “Of course, that is the message, right? God wants us all to be holy and be saints and that is why Charlene has not just belonged to us. She belongs to you. She belongs to the church. She belongs to the whole world, and most of all, as we all do, she belongs to God.”
Charlene was born on January 13, 1947. After being diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukemia, she died on August 11, 1959, at the age of 12.
During her final days at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Lafayette, Richard would offer her prayers and suffering to God each day for different people with miraculous results.
Since her passing, people have come from all over the world to pray at her tomb, located in the graveyard next St. Edward Church, with many who have testified to her extraordinary intercession.
Richard spoke to the crowd shortly before the 10 a.m. ceremony began, and he thanked many individuals as he addressed those in attendance.
“We have a wonderful bishop (Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel of the Diocese of Lafayette), and he has said that it is time to open up the cause for Charlene’s beatification and canonization. We love him,” Richard said.
Richard also thanked all of the pastors in the Richard Community who led the community in prayer and gave them the sacraments, including Father Floyd Calais, Father Korey Lavergne, who will carry the documents of the Acts of Investigation for the Cause for Canonization to the Vatican in Rome, and Rev. Don Luis Escalante, who guided the family through the canonization process and will represent the cause at the Vatican.
Richard also thanked the late Father Joseph Brennan, who was the one tasked with telling young Charlene that she had an incurable disease and ministered to girl after her diagnosis.
“Father Brennan was very surprised when Charlene turned the tables on him spiritually and confirmed his belief in Heaven and the power of offering up our sufferings for others to God, who helped other people,” Richard said.
Richard said that without these individuals, the world would not know about Charlene.
He also thanked those in the crowd and his own family, “which has gone through a very unusual, frightening and confusing and beautiful journey.
“I want to thank our mother and our father and our grandparents and our parishioners who taught us to love God and the Blessed Mother and to serve other people. We will not know until we are in heaven why God placed such a special person in our large family.”
Richard continued, “Acadiana is holy ground. There is something very special about our communities. There is something holy about Acadiana, the Cajun and Creole people and the strong Catholic faith we share. The Cajun and Creole people have known suffering but continue to trust in God. If you are suffering, if you are hurting, if you need to strengthen your trust in God, you are in the right place. Ask Charlene to pray for you, and see what happens.
“Today, we ask the Holy Father to please, please, show his world what we know and believe, that Charlene Richard is the ‘Little Cajun Saint,’ who by her prayers, accomplishes very big things for the glory of God. Please continue to pray for the beatification of my beloved sister and Servant of God, Charlene Marie Richard. We love you and may God bless you.”
The actual ceremony began with a procession of participating clergy, including the bishop.
“Today, we commemorate the closing of the work of the process with the solemn oath that the process has been completed to the best of our abilities,” Deshotel said as he began the ceremony.
For many, the ceremony was more than 50 years in the making, and the process to which the Bishop referred officially began on Jan. 11, 2020, when he, having received petitions on behalf of the faithful, opened the Cause for the Servant of God Charlene Marie Richard with an event at Immaculata Chapel in Lafayette.
“Since that time, various officials I have appointed have diligently conducted an inquiry into the life and virtue of our servant of God,” Deshotel said.
During the inquiry, more than 1,000 pages of documents were prepared carefully by expert volunteers and are now an official record of how Charlene — a pre-teenager, daughter, sister, granddaughter, friend, athlete, cancer patient, hero — lived a heroic life of faith, hope, love, prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude.
“The work of this inquiry has delved as deeply and as unscrupulously as humanly possible into the life of the Servant of God,” Deshotel said. “It has required that witnesses swear, under oath, before Almighty God, to the truth of all they have answered. The information in the inquiry is confidential and known only to those absolutely necessary to the investigation.
“This has been a necessary and arduous process. Today, we commemorate the closing of the work of the process with the solemn oath that the process has been completed to the best of our abilities.”
The bishop thanked all of the officials for the cause, the witnesses, the Charlene Richard Foundation, volunteers and the staff of the chancellery for their work.
Next, the officials of Cause who were present made their oath before God that they faithfully fulfilled their duty and attested to the same with their signatures. Those individuals included Father Taylor Reynolds, the episcopal delegate of the mission who will represent the bishop on the journey to the Vatican and also questioned most of the witnesses in the investigation; Father Joshua Guillory, Promoter of Justice for the Cause; Peggy Mouton, notary for the cause; and lastly, Lavergne, of St. Edwards Church and courier of the documents, who will carry two of the copies of the Acts of the Cause to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints directly across from Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
The original copy of the inquiry will remain sealed in the archives of the Diocese of Lafayette.
Next, Deshotel blessed the three copies of the documents, signed the Decree for the Conclusion of the diocesan phase of the inquiry and entrusted the Acts of the Investigation to Lavergne. When the documents are delivered to the Vatican, the Roman Phase of the Inquiry will begin, and the documents will be meticulously examined by a panel of eminent theologians and esteemed experts.
“If they find the documentation convincing, the Acts of the Inquiry will be sent for higher review by the cardinal and bishop members of the dicastery,” Deshotel said. “If they also find the documentation favorable, the cause will be sent to the Holy Father himself (Pope Francis), requesting that he himself confer upon the servant of God, the title ‘Venerable.’
“If the process does not move forward, it in no way means that the church believes the Servant of God is not in heaven or that she is not a remarkable example of the Christian faith. The vast majority of the faithful in heaven are never canonized. Nonetheless, we the faithful of the Diocese of Lafayette have great confidence that the universal church will view this cause in a most favorable light.
“We must also remember that the process will take time. How much time, we are unable to know because, one, there are causes ahead of our case, two, the resources of the dicastery are limited, and three, the cause must proceed according to the norms of cannon law to the satisfaction of the Apostolic See.”
Deshotel said that one of the most important aspects of the presentation of any Cause for Canonization is the prayer of the people of God. The bishop then led the crowd in the “Prayer for Beatification,” and “Te Deum” or “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” was sung.
Following the ceremony, the bishop and other participating clergy walked to the graveyard to bless Richard’s tomb, which is located next to her parents, Joseph Elvin and Mary Alice Richard, and a brother, Gene Richard, who was killed in an automobile accident.