Fr. Jean-Marie Jammes

St. Martinville - A memorial Mass will be held at 10:00 a.m., Friday, May 11, 2007, at St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church, in St. Martinville for Father Jean-Marie Jammes, 86, who died Monday, April 30, 2007, in Chirac (Lozre), France. Interment was held on Thursday, May 3, 2007, in Chirac (Lozre), France. Born on September 24, 1920, in Barjac (Lozre), France, Fr. Jammes studied in France, Rome and the United States. He was ordained a priest on January 25, 1943, was youth chaplain, then imprisoned by the Gestapo in 1943. In 1944, he was named military chaplain (as a captain), taught at the seminary then at le Collge Stanislas in Paris. He obtained his doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1954. He devoted his life to sociological research and writing (on French War Brides in America, The Propagation of the Faith and the French in the Growth and Development of the Catholic Church in America) and to the apostolate. Sent to Louisiana by the French government in 1973, he devoted his career to this mission. He received the Academic Palms (as an officer) and was received into the French National Order of Merit. He served as pastor of St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church in St. Martinville and St. Elizabeth in Coteau Holmes.