In the wake of Hurricane Gustav, we’ve been trying to be in touch with our diocesan members in the south who have been working to recover. With so much loss of power and resources it’s been hard to get in touch with most, but Tom Constanza (Diocese of New Orleans) reports that the diocese is working on assessing the situation of New Orleans. He says there has been no loss of life, but that there have been extensive problems with electricity and that there are massive outages throughout the diocese that may take weeks to repair. Becky Reiners (Diocese of Baton Rouge) has also been in touch and reports that the situation there is very challenging with gas, food and water all in short supply. She reports that her own diocese as well as that of Lafayette, Lake Charles and Houma-Thibodaux have all been hard hit.

Becky explained that help is welcome from supporters but that those that want to help should NOT send clothes, but that financial support is really what is needed right now. She added that gas cards could be helpful in allowing the people to get back on the roads. Catholic Charities USA is taking the lead in coordinating the efforts down there.

If you would like to provide financial support to these efforts you can:

Send checks to
Catholic Charities USA
2008 Hurricanes
PO Box 17141
Baltimore, MD 21297-1141

If you prefer to direct support to a particular diocese the contact information for our Roundtable Members are listed below.

Tom Constanza (New Orleans) 504-596-3097 tcostanza@archdiocese-no.org

Rob Gorman (Houna-Thibodaux 985-876-0490 rgorman@htdiocese.org

Becky Reiners (Baton Rouge) 225-387-0561 x405 Breiners@ccsbr.org

Paul Thomas (Beaumont) 409-924-4315 pthomas@catholiccharitiesbmt.org

Deacon Sam Dunning (Galveston-Houston) 713-741-8731 sdunning@diog.org

Una Hargrave (Lafayette) 337-261-5545 una@dol-louisiana.org

Rev. Henry Mancuso (Lake Charles, LA) 337-439-2646 mancusoh1@cs.com