At all masses in all churches throughout the archdiocese, the Roman Catholics of New Orleans listened to a pastoral letter that may prove to be a milestone in the school history of the city. "Racial segregation as such," Archbishop Rummel declared in the letter, "is morally wrong and sinful because it is a denial of the unity and solidarity of the human race as conceived by God in the creation of man in Adam and Eve." Thus did German-born Joseph Francis Rummel, sometime (1924-28) pastor in New York's Harlem, serve notice that he had every intention of desegregating the parochial schools.
Since...