Cakes became the tool of ecumenism

Baptist and Catholic churches in Fifth Ward united in love and service

By Donna Culotta

Fifth Ward is more than a passing through stop in the road on Hwy 1. The biggest thing you see is a convenience store but the truly biggest thing is what motorists don’t see.

The community, which has a Marksville zip and a strange name, is a place where ecumenism thrives.

On one side of the road is Our Lady of Lourdes (OLOL) Catholic Church and on the other is Fifth Ward Baptist Church separated by, maybe a half mile. The distance is easily covered in how the two congregations interact with each other.

Rev. Keith Lamartiniere has been pastor of the Baptist Church for coming up to 40 years. His constancy there has seen the evolution of the special relationship that exists between the two congregations.

“Our first church started in a house on the river,” he said “and the current building was constructed in 1974.”

According to Elaine Bordelon, a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes for 60 years, the parish was first a mission of St. Francis de Sales in Echo. When OLOL was built in 1924 it became larger and the Echo church became the mission church.

Coming back to Brother Keith, as he’s called by half the known world, “I had been pastor for three years and we were going to have a dinner. A parishioner from OLOL told the congregation that he wanted to help the Baptist church with the meal. The Catholics didn’t understand why they should do it but the parishioner went ahead and helped just s he said he was going to do.”

It turned out a huge success and was the beginning of the relationship the two churches still have today.

“When the Catholic church next had a dinner,” Brother Keith said, “I asked the church to make cakes for their dinner. We delivered 60 cakes and bought 120 dinner tickets.”

As Elaine pointed out. “It’s a small community, everybody in Fifth Ward knows everybody else, no matter what church they attend.”

She added, “When the Baptist church has a Bible Study some of the Catholics attend, when there’s a funeral, they come to our church.”

Many times funerals are led by both Deacon Darrel Dubroc, who serves at OLOL, and Brother Keith.

“We have a fair coming up,” she said, “we’ll get cakes from them. We always put on a Christmas Eve Nativity play that sometimes they would attend. One year they had a Nativity play a week before Christmas and borrowed our costumes. We had extra costumes and gave them to our Baptist friends.”

She also mentioned that some of the Baptists attended the Thursday night rosary at OLOL and if there was a special service at FW Baptist, the Catholics would be there.

“They’ve even given us a monetary donation for our church fair,” Elaine remarked.

Brother Keith grew up in Fifth Ward and attended school there.

He reminisced a little bit and said how as a teen he was voted the kid who would probably end up in Angola.

“I don’t know,” he began, “I was Baptist and in church Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening and went to the Catholic Church with my friends. I guess I was tired of always having to be in church because my devout Baptist mother went everywhere to attend revivals and special services.”

Being the only Protestant in his class, “everyone else was Catholic and they went to Catechism class, so I asked Father Charles if I could come to Catechism classes at OLOL and he said yes.”

Because Brother Keith has always been open to every religion, he learned a lot about Catholicism, which fostered his spirit of broad-mindedness.

“There is good understanding and love between the two churches,” he said “Some call it ‘unheard of’ but I say that’s the way it should be and we all work together as a community.”

When Brother Keith and the Baptist congregation heard that OLOL might close in the recent shuffling of parishes in the deanery, “we really prayed that wouldn’t happen. I told Darrel I wanted to speak to the Bishop and explain. But it was worked out and the church stayed open.”

This is what “church” is all about, it’s not really a building, it’s the people in the building.

“It makes no difference who you are,” Brother Keith said, ‘ we must show the love of God to those around us and preach the message of Jesus.”

And that’s exactly what’s going on in Fifth Ward.