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Beginning in 1966 with the appointment of Bishop Harold R. Perry as auxiliary bishop of New Orleans, the diocese was honored with the selection of several native sons to be bishops.
Bishop Perry, a native of Sacred Heart Parish, Lake Charles, was the first 20th century black bishop appointed in the U.S.
Bishop Joseph Francis, a native of St. Paul's Parish, Lafayette, was named auxiliary bishop of Newark, N.J. in 1976. Both Bishop Perry and Bishop Francis had been serving as provincial of the Divine Word Missionaries southern province when they were appointed bishops.
Bishop Raymond Caesar, a native of St. Mathilda Parish, Eunice, was appointed in 1978, coadjutor with right of succession to the Bishop of Papua New Guinea where he had been serving as a missionary since 1963. He became Bishop in 1980 and died in 1988.
In 1988, Bishop Curtis Guillory, a native of St. Anne Parish, Mallet, was appointed auxiliary bishop of Galveston-Houston, TX. He had been serving as Vicar for Black Catholics of the Archdiocese of New Orleans when he was appointed to the episcopacy.
Also in 1988, Bishop Leonard Olivier, another native of Sacred Heart, Lake Charles, was appointed auxiliary bishop of Washington, D.C., He had been serving as Vicar for Black Catholics of the Lafayette Diocese when he was appointed to the episcopacy.
Another Black priest, Bishop Dominic Carmon, a native of the Opelousas area, was appointed auxiliary bishop of New Orleans in 1992.