St. John the Baptist

History of St. John the Baptist

The parish was established in 1851 to serve Irish Catholic immigrants in what was then the Dryades Street corridor of New Orleans' Central City. A modest wooden church preceded the present brick building, whose cornerstone was laid in 1857 under Father Jeremiah Moynihan and which was completed in 1872. The cost of building exhausted the congregation's resources, and it was not until the 1880s — after the Reverend Thomas Kenny effectively purchased the building — that the interior was finished and the celebrated Munich stained-glass windows were installed. A lightning strike in 1909 forced a steel-and-concrete roof reconstruction. By the 1950s, with the elevated Pontchartrain Expressway rising alongside, the parish school and convent (run since 1860 by Dominican Sisters from Cabra, Ireland) were demolished and the church itself was slated for the same fate. Monsignor Arthur T. Screen, the pastor, led the campaign to save the historic structure and gold-leafed the steeple — funded by proceeds from the sale of the school property — creating the 'Golden Steeple' landmark that defines the parish today.

Architecture & Stained Glass

Architect Albert Diettel modeled the church on the onion-domed Hofkirche (Cathedral of the Court) in Dresden, Germany, with paired pilasters, Corinthian columns on the three-stage tower, and a heavily molded entablature that wraps the building and curves over the small rose window in the facade. Irish-born contractor Thomas Mulligan executed the 1869–1872 construction; the brickwork is considered unusually fine. The interior's defining feature is its great stained-glass windows, manufactured in the 1880s by the renowned Munich studios of Franz Mayer and F. X. Zettler and depicting the life of Our Lord and the Holy Family. Stained-glass connoisseurs have ranked the windows among the top three ensembles in the Western Hemisphere. The interior is anchored by a 90-foot center aisle that has made the church a celebrated venue for Catholic weddings.

• Architect: Albert Diettel (1869–1872)
• Builder: Thomas Mulligan (Irish-born contractor)
• Modeled on Dresden's Hofkirche
• Stained glass: Franz Mayer and F. X. Zettler, Munich (1880s)
• Gold-leafed onion-dome steeple (gold-leafed in the 1960s, regilded 1963)
• 90-foot center aisle

Masses & Sacraments

St. John the Baptist currently celebrates two public Masses per week — the Saturday Vigil at 4:00 p.m. and Sunday at 9:15 a.m. — with Rev. Randy Roux serving as chaplain. All sacramental preparation (baptism, first Communion, confirmation, marriage) is coordinated with the parent parish at St. Patrick's Church, 724 Camp Street, and visitors are encouraged to consult the parish bulletin and online calendar for Holy Day and seasonal schedules.

• Saturday Vigil: 4:00 p.m.
• Sunday: 9:15 a.m.
• Chaplain: Rev. Randy Roux
• Holy Days: per bulletin / St. Patrick's calendar

Weddings & the Long Bridal Aisle

The shrine's flagship ministry is weddings. Couples are invited to 'walk the 90-foot center aisle in your beautiful bridal gown,' surrounded by the late-19th-century Munich stained glass and the soaring Diettel interior. Reservations and liturgical questions are handled through the office at 1139 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. / (504) 525-4413.

• Signature 90-foot central aisle
• Booked through the shrine office
• Surrounded by Mayer & Zettler stained glass

Parish Identity & Governance

Although the 1872 building is retained as a shrine church and wedding chapel under the title 'The Church with the Golden Steeple,' its canonical and pastoral home is St. Patrick's Church at 724 Camp Street, in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Day-to-day ministry at the shrine is led by chaplain Rev. Randy Roux, and correspondence (including email) is routed through [email protected].

• Governing parish: St. Patrick's Church, 724 Camp Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
• Diocese: Archdiocese of New Orleans
• Chaplain: Rev. Randy Roux
• Type: Shrine / wedding chapel

Notable Points Worth Knowing

Few visitors realize how much nineteenth-century New Orleans history is preserved in this one block: the gold-leafed onion dome, the Dresden-inspired brick facade, the Munich stained glass, and the very street the church sits on — renamed Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard in 1989 in honor of the civil-rights leader whose statue stands at the boulevard's edge. The parish also preserves the memory of the Dominican Sisters of Cabra, whose school (closed in the 1950s) survived in spirit when its soil was carried to St. Mary's Dominican High in 2000.

• Third-oldest Catholic parish in the Archdiocese of New Orleans (after St. Louis Cathedral and St. Charles Borromeo, Destrehan).
• Built largely for the Irish immigrants who settled along the Tchoupitoulas Coast.
• Rectory built 1895; renovated 2016 in cranberry-red with white Gothic trim.
• Site of a small monument/orienting statue at the boulevard edge.