‘The Five Priests’ Tells Heroic True Story of the Shreveport Martyrs| National Catholic Register
Docudrama scenes and animation illustrate the heroic actions of the priestly quintet.
The Five Priests, a full-length documentary film about five French-born priests known as the “Shreveport Martyrs” who gave their lives ministering to the sick during the devastating Yellow Fever epidemic of 1873 in Shreveport, Louisiana, will premiere Oct. 8 on EWTN.
Through details in the extensive records and letters from that time, the film makes use of the priests’ and local people’s own words and descriptions.
Fathers Isidore Quémerais, Jean Pierre, Jean-Marie Biler, Louis Gergaud and François Le Vézouët are all “Servants of God” as their canonization cause continues. The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in Rome granted that the five priests be considered together as one cause. They have always been known and referred to collectively in the diocese as the “Shreveport Martyrs.” The epidemic that showed their sacrifice lasted from late August to mid-November of 1873. The five priests died between Sept. 15 and Oct. 8.
The Five Priests, a multi-award winner at national and international film festivals, including the Cannes World Film Festival, is based on the book Shreveport Martyrs of 1873: The Surest Path to Heaven, co-authored by Father Peter Mangum, W. Ryan Smith and Cheryl White. This trio of writers appear as onscreen commentators, narrating the inspiring story as various docudrama scenes and animation illustrate the heroic actions of the priestly quintet.
The true story lays the groundwork with extensive details of Shreveport’s growth as a river town and how that relates to what at first were thought the possible causes of the Yellow Fever epidemic. The narrators take turns talking about the physical conditions of a town of 4,500 souls, densely populated in the business area near the river, combined with unsanitary living conditions. Beginning in these early scenes and running throughout the film, the animation is simple and stylized. The filmmaking technique is evocative of what’s being described as it subtly reminds viewers that this is a true story.
To serve the local population, Bishop Auguste Marie Martin went to Brittany, France, to recruit priests. He came back with priests and seminarians, eight in all. “They had nothing to lose. They had already given everything up,” said Cardinal Christophe Pierre, papal nuncio to the United States.
As the story progresses, the documentary picks up that mood, aided by the authors’ narration and enhanced by the narrators’ fervor and zeal for the physical and spiritual drama. Each person builds a new detail and offers a new insight. With the help of animation, every part of the story is colorfully “fleshed out.”
Of the five priests, two already serving in Shreveport remained ministering to the sick, while the other three came to aid, willingly answering the call for help. Each one left his safe location knowing he also would most likely contract yellow fever — and die from it. They would not abandon the people of Shreveport — many of them poor immigrants and African Americans, who were unable to leave — as the well-off did, for safer environs.
Further enhancing the drama of the story — and supporting the heroic actions of these five martyrs of charity — are small but telling inserts, including pages from the local newspaper, the Shreveport Times, listing the names of people and their ages who were succumbing to the devastating fever.
“They were there for everybody, whoever they were, it mattered not,” White emphasized of the priest-martyrs.
Based on inadequate understanding of disease transmission, they took no special precautions for their safety. Upon entering a home of the ill, the priests had no second thoughts about holding a hand or touching a face. To be physically present in that way for someone who is suffering speaks to the very heart, not just of what we’re called to do as human beings, but in imitation of Christ. To add a few further insights into these five priests and their work, this primary trio of commentators is joined by Cardinal Pierre, along with Shreveport Bishop Francis Malone and Mayor Adrian Perkins.
Aided by the dynamic recounting of Father Peter Mangum, rector of the Cathedral of St. John Berchmans and episcopal delegate for the cause of beatification and canonization, author Smith and historian White, both of whom are members of the Diocesan Historical Commission for the Cause of Beatification and Canonization, the sacrifices of these five priests comes across in a dramatic way. Speaking of what the priests did, Father Mangum reflects, “It provides a sacrifice … the charity of Jesus Christ, who offered himself for others. And they do it with joy. They do it with hope. They do it with a great sense of — this is how it is I’m going to glorify God and attain eternal life with him forever in heaven.”
White offers a moving conclusion: “These five priests represented comfort and hope and a response to basic human dignity in a time when many people chose to flee. I think that’s a reminder to all of us that, whenever we’re confronted with a difficult situation, we always have a choice. And these men, all five of them, made the choice to make a free and willing offering of their lives.”
WATCH
The Five Priests will air on EWTN on Oct. 8, 10:30 a.m. Eastern.
