"The Ursuline Convent, New Orleans" — the Ursulines in New Orleans, 1727–1803
Designed by French colonial engineers in 1745 and completed in 1752–53, the Old Ursuline Convent has been a convent for the Ursuline nuns, an orphanage, a school for girls, the residence of the Archbishops of New Orleans, the archdiocesan central office, and even a meeting place for the Louisiana Legislature. Today, together with St. Louis Cathedral and St. Mary's Church next door, it forms the Catholic Cultural Center of New Orleans. Its simple twelve-bay façade, brick-between-post construction, and cross-ventilated rooms were a colonial response to the city's heat — and they have outlasted every fire and flood since.
Spiritual significance
A National Historic Landmark and the oldest surviving building in the Mississippi River Valley — a tangible link to the earliest Catholic mission in this part of North America and to the Ursuline sisters who opened the first school for girls in what is now the United States.
A Prayer in the Old Convent
“God of every generation, who guided the Ursuline sisters across stormy seas to teach the young and care for the poor in this city — give us their courage, their fidelity, and their joy in our own time and place. Amen.”
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