Officials in the Catholic diocese are weighing new safety protocols, including the possibility of someone carrying a firearm at services, after Saturday's confrontation at St Mary Magdalen Church in Abbeville, a small city in the southern part of the state.

Less than a week earlier, a man tried to shoot a pastor during a service at a Pennsylvania church, adding to concerns about mass shootings and other violence at religious institutions in the US.

The armed 16-year-old in Louisiana was wearing a mask and a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up when parishioners spotted him in the church vestibule. They quickly subdued him and held him outside until police arrived, said Blue Rolfes, director of communications at the Catholic Diocese of Lafayette.

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