Charlene Richard

The Little Cajun Saint

Charlene Marie Richard was born on January 13, 1947, in the tiny community of Richard, Acadia Parish, Louisiana, the second of ten children born to Joseph Elvin and Mary Alice Richard. By all accounts, she was an ordinary Cajun girl: she loved sports, played with her siblings, attended Mass with her family, and prayed the rosary. Her mother would later recall that “she was just a normal little girl.”

In May 1959, twelve-year-old Charlene read a book about Saint Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower, and was captivated. She asked her grandmother a question that would prove prophetic: “Could I become a saint by praying like Saint Therese?” Shortly afterward, Charlene began feeling unwell. After a visit to the doctor, she was diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukemia and admitted to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Lafayette, Louisiana.

What happened in the weeks that followed astonished the doctors, nurses, and chaplains who witnessed it. Despite excruciating pain, the twelve-year-old accepted her suffering with extraordinary calm and offered it up for others. She prayed continuously from her hospital bed, specifically asking God to heal other patients and to convert sinners. The hospital chaplain, Father Joseph Brennan, and the Director of Pediatrics, Sister Theresita Crowley, O.S.F., both testified that those for whom Charlene prayed recovered from their illnesses or entered the Catholic Church.

Charlene died on August 11, 1959, at the age of twelve. Almost immediately, letters began pouring in to her family from people across Louisiana and beyond, recounting unlikely conversions, unexpected healings, and answered prayers attributed to her intercession. In 2020, Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel of the Diocese of Lafayette officially opened her cause for canonization. In 2021, the U.S. Bishops affirmed the advancement of her cause, and in January 2024, the diocesan inquiry phase was formally closed and the documents were sent to Rome.

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