September 2026 commemorates the hundredth anniversary of Jesuit High School’s South Carrollton Avenue campus, while the prior year marked three centuries since the Society of Jesus first arrived in New Orleans.
Unlike the Ursuline nuns, whose girls’ academy has been in continuous operation here since 1727, the Jesuits have a distinctly bifurcated history in New Orleans, split by a 74-year absence.
French authorities first invited Roman Catholic orders to Louisiana to bring ministry and education to the remote colony. Capuchin priests arrived in the early 1720s, followed by the Jesuits in 1725 and the Ursulines in 1727…