Long before Hurricane Katrina flooding destroyed the homes on the blocks of Lamanche Street near Oliver Bush Park in the Lower 9th Ward, there was a spiritual church at the center of a compound called The Manger. The church was Mother Catherine Seals’ Temple of the Innocent Blood. Though influential and wealthy in the 1920s, the Black spiritual leader and healer is an almost forgotten figure in New Orleans.
Largely illiterate and a survivor of three abusive husbands, Mother Catherine turned to the popular Eternal Life Christian Spiritualist Church. After a faith healer refused to see her on a day not reserved for Black followers, she split off and led her own congregation. At the height of her mission in the 1920s, more than 1,000 followers, including many mixed-race former residents of Storyville, lived at The Manger.
“The Temple was the meeting place where they would worship twice a day,” says Pandora Gastelum, who’s created a puppet show about Mother Catherine. “It was an open-air tent, where Mother Catherine lived. She had her private quarters in the Temple. Quite dramatically, she would be lowered through a hole in the tent to hold services. She would be lowered down to greet the congregation with great fanfare from the band.”…