Catholic School Eighth Grade in Revolt

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Apparently it’s as true for priests as it is for the rest of us: you can’t please everybody.  I think almost any priest will tell you that no matter how loving and caring and effective their ministry might be, sooner or later somebody is going to take umbrage at something and become disgruntled. I know that to be the case because I can show you letters in the diocesan archives complaining about some of our best and most beloved priests.

One of those was Fr. John A. Labranche who, during his pastorates at Holy Rosary, Notre Dame de Lourdes and St. Joseph parishes, compiled about the most exemplary record of any priest who ever ministered in our diocese. I have yet to meet anyone who knew him and benefitted from his ministry who has any but the highest praise for him. And yet in 1962 he found himself fighting for his priestly life at Notre Dame de Lourdes Parish in Price, with disgruntled parishioners complaining to Bishop Joseph L. Federal and clamoring for his removal.

The exact issue that upset people is unclear, but the situation became so acute that it moved even the eighth-grade students at Notre Dame School to rise up in protest and write to Bishop Federal defending their priest. To my mind, it is one of the most remarkable documents in the archives.  

Dated September 13, 1962, the letter reads:

We the eighth grade students of Notre Dame School, would like to inform you of our great agitation in learning of the situation concerning Father Labranche.

We have never known of a better priest, or as our Sister explains it, “a more priestly priest,” than Father.  So before you make your decision concerning his resignation as pastor of the Price parish, we would like you to know that the people who wish to see Father remain greatly outnumber the uncouth people of are so ignorant as not to realize what Father has done for our parish.

Sincerely,

The Eighth Grade Students of Notre Dame

There are, by my count, 39 signatures appended.

As you contemplate this letter, keep in mind its historical context: Mario Savio and the Free Speech movement among the students at the University of California, Berkeley were still a couple of years in the future, and even more distant were the student riots over civil rights and the Vietnam War. Keep in mind, too, that these kids were students in a Catholic school, where respect for authority was as much a part of the curriculum as the three R’s.

Because this letter is in Fr. Labranche’s papers, not Bishop Federal’s, it seems that the students drafted it, signed it, and gave it to their priest as possible ammunition in his defense in case the bishop did try to remove him. Fortunately, that never happened. Bishop Federal’s letters to Fr. Labranche during that difficult time indicate that the priest had his solid support. (Perhaps the bishop himself, during his long priestly ministry, had faced similarly difficult times?)

Gary Topping is the archivist for the Diocese of Salt Lake City.