Shelton Fabre

On 13 December 2006, Fabre was appointed Titular Bishop of Pudentiana and auxiliary bishop of New Orleans by Pope Benedict XVI. He was consecrated as bishop on 28 February 2007 in New Orleans.[1] In the Archdiocese of New Orleans he served as Vicar General and as Moderator of the Curia.

On September 23, 2013, Pope Francis appointed Fabre as the new bishop to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux in Louisiana. He was installed during a Mass at his Cathedral of St. Francis de Sales on October 30, 2013. As bishop of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, he leads 125,000 registered Catholics, 39 churches and a number of chapels, missions, and communities.[3]

On May 4, 2018, it was announced by Daniel Cardinal DiNardo, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, that Fabre would succeed George Murry of the Diocese of Youngstown as the Chair of the Ad-Hoc Committee against racism. On November 6, 2018, Fabre released Open Wide our Hearts, The Enduring Call to Love, a pastoral letter that addresses ongoing racism issues facing the United States and a Catholic's call to response.

In the wake of the death of Mr. George Floyd in Powderhorn, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Fabre along with Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez of Philadelphia, chairman of the Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church; Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities; Joseph C. Bambera of Scranton, chairman of the Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs; David G. O’Connell, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, chairman of the Subcommittee on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development; and Bishop Joseph N. Perry, auxiliary bishop of Chicago, chairman of the Subcommittee on African American Affairs issued a statement of U.S. Bishop Chairmen in Wake of Death of George Floyd and National Protests. The statement has a special emphasis on the Solemnity of Pentecost and the call to "...pray and work toward a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray for a supernatural desire to rid ourselves of the harm that bias and prejudice cause. We call upon Catholics to pray to the Holy Spirit for the Spirit of Truth to touch the hearts of all in the United States and to come down upon our criminal justice and law enforcement systems. Finally, let each and every Catholic, regardless of their ethnicity, beg God to heal our deeply broken view of each other, as well as our deeply broken society."