The Shreveport Martyrs

Five Priests Who Would Not Leave

In the summer of 1873, yellow fever swept through Shreveport, Louisiana, with devastating force. The disease, carried by mosquitoes breeding in the swampy lowlands of the Red River, killed roughly a quarter of the city’s population. Most who could flee did so. Five young French missionary priests, all between twenty-six and twenty-seven years old, chose to stay.

All five had come from Brittany or nearby regions of France to serve the Catholic faithful of northwestern Louisiana. When the epidemic struck, they threw themselves into caring for the sick and dying, administering last rites, visiting homes where entire families lay prostrate with fever, and burying the dead. They knew the risk. They had watched parishioners and fellow citizens fall by the hundreds. They stayed anyway.

One by one, the fever took them. Father Isidore Quémerais was the first to die on September 14. Father Jean Pierre followed three days later. Father Jean Marie Biler died on September 23. Father Louis Marie Gergaud held on until October 1. Father François LeVézouët, the last of the five, died on October 4. All five were dead within three weeks.

Their sacrifice was remembered locally for generations. In 2017, Pope Francis formally recognized “offering of life” as a valid pathway to beatification, distinct from martyrdom or heroic virtue. This category applies to those who freely and voluntarily offered their lives for others, accepting certain death out of charity. The Shreveport priests fit this description exactly.

In December 2020, the Diocese of Shreveport formally opened their cause for canonization, making this the first cause from northern Louisiana. Their story is a testament to the missionary spirit: young men who crossed an ocean to serve, and who gave everything when their flock needed them most.

Timeline