LAPLACE — Father Walter Austin has seen a lot in his 10 years as pastor at Ascension of Our Lord Church, but this was a first.

Right in the middle of the 8:30 a.m. Mass on Sunday, Austin looked up and saw a naked man walking up the aisle.

“It was the middle of Mass, the part where we’re doing the collection,” Austin said. “I’m just sitting down and I was looking at something else when I hear a collective groan from the congregation. I look up and there’s a man. He’s stark naked.”

Shocked, Austin yelled for the man to “get out of here.”

“I had a live mic on,” Austin said.

The man, who Austin said is somewhat familiar to church officials and lives in the surrounding neighborhood, fell down at the front of the altar into a crouch position.

“He wasn’t violent or anything,” Austin said. “He seemed kind of upset.”

Austin said he helped the man up and took him to the side door where the ushers escorted him out.

“I don’t think it was too shocking,” Austin said. “He walked up so quickly nobody really saw anything.”

The ushers later told Austin that the man had come by before the start of Mass and was told to go home.

About two hours later Austin said he was sitting in the confessional when he heard another ruckus. The man had returned, this time wearing his clothing, and walked back to the altar. This time some family members followed him in, trying to stop him.

Austin said the man told him, “I need prayers.”

“So, I prayed with him,” Austin said. “After about five minutes he got really calm and stood up as if nothing happened. He turned around and started walking out the church, telling people, ‘I love you. I love you.’

“When I got outside he was sitting on a bench. I sat with him and we prayed and I told him, ‘You know, there are boundaries that we live by. One of those is that we don’t go into church with no clothes on.’”

Austin said, while somewhat scary, the incident will not change the way the church operates.

“The Archdiocese is working on a plan about security in churches,” he said. “We have ushers in the back.

“About the only other thing we can do is lock the doors and give people passcodes to get in. We certainly don’t want to do that.”