Auguste “Nonco” Pelafigue

The Apostle of the Sacred Heart in Acadiana

Auguste Pelafigue was born on January 10, 1888, near Lourdes, France, the pilgrimage city where the Blessed Virgin appeared to Saint Bernadette thirty years before his birth. As a young man he emigrated to Arnaudville, a small Cajun town in the heart of Acadiana, Louisiana. He became a schoolteacher and quickly earned the affectionate nickname “Nonco,” a Cajun French term of respect for an older man.

What set Nonco apart was a singular devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus that lasted sixty-eight years. Every day he walked the country roads of St. Martin Parish with a rosary in hand, visiting the sick, praying with families, and spreading the Sacred Heart devotion from house to house. He was not a priest or religious brother, just a layman with an extraordinary interior life and a tireless commitment to his neighbors.

His pastor summed up Nonco’s life in a single sentence: “He is another priest in my parish.” In 1953, Pope Pius XII recognized his decades of service by awarding him the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal, one of the highest papal honors a layperson can receive.

Nonco Pelafigue died on June 6, 1977, the Feast of the Sacred Heart, at the age of eighty-nine. He had spent nearly seven decades walking the same roads, carrying the same rosary, visiting the same families and their children and grandchildren. On January 11, 2020, Bishop Douglas Deshotel of the Diocese of Lafayette formally opened his cause for canonization. The USCCB bishops affirmed the advancement of his cause in 2021.

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