January 17, 2012
Catholic News Around Indiana
Compiled by Brandon A. Evans
Begin reading, or choose a diocese: Fort Wayne-South Bend | Gary | Indianapolis | Lafayette
Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend
No briefs available this week
(For news from the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, log on to the website of Today’s Catholic at www.todayscatholicnews.org)
Diocese of Gary
Action and service: Message of Dr. Martin Luther King lives on
Story by Steve Euvino
GARY—Two priests and one mayor recalled the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in two words: action and service. Speaking Jan. 8 at Holy Angels Cathedral, the three recounted the slain civil rights leader’s belief in equality and nonviolence, calling upon their audience to continue that legacy. “Martin Luther King once said, ‘Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?’” said Father Jon Plavcan, rector of the cathedral. “He believed each individual possessed the power to lift himself or herself up, no matter what his or her circumstances were in life. He was a person about service in the world and helping others as well.”
Karen Freeman-Wilson, the newly-installed mayor of Gary, asked the assembly: “What is going to cause you to move into action?”
The first female mayor in Gary’s 106-year history, Freeman-Wilson inherits a city racked with urban problems: high crime and poverty rates, low graduation rates, and buildings and neighborhoods in need of repair. This situation, the new mayor said, evokes many sentiments – shame, fatigue, anger, and righteous indignation – the same feelings that led others to fight slavery for equal rights.
“Righteous indignation caused Dr. King and others to move from sentiment … to the action of the civil rights movement,” said the Harvard-educated Freeman-Wilson.
People can sit idly by and abdicate their responsibility, the mayor said, or they can be part of the solution.
As followers of Christ, Freeman-Wilson said, it is not just about sharing Christ’s heart or sentiment, “but his action.” She added, “God’s hands are our hands.”
The fifth annual King tribute at the cathedral included orator Troy Patterson Thomas’ rendition of King’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech and musical selections by the concert choir from Wirt-Emerson Visual and Performing Arts High Ability Academy in Gary.
Father Charles Mosley, pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Hammond, cited the “extraordinary faith which we share with Martin Luther King.” That faith, he said, has helped break the chains of slavery, end the oppression of Jim Crow laws, helped face police dogs and clubs, and even led to the White House. “It is that same faith that allows us to continue today,” Father Mosley said. “We can focus on the bad, but we must focus on the faith that keeps us strong.”
(For news from the Diocese of Gary, log on to the website of the Northwest Indiana Catholic at www.nwicatholic.com)
Archdiocese of Indianapolis
From Sudan to Richmond, priest gives thanks for his vocation
By Sean Gallagher
One day in 1991, Father Todd Riebe was walking with some friends along a dusty street in Juba in southern Sudan.
Their quiet stroll was brought to a sudden halt when artillery shells began exploding all around them. Juba had been a frequent target in a decades-long civil war in Sudan.
“It was right there [where we were],” Father Riebe said. “In fact, the person right next to me was killed.
“I can remember, as this was all happening, laying there and saying, ‘This is it,’ and thanking God. It had been such a good life. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. Then it all ended and you went to see who was alive and who wasn’t.”
At the time, Father Riebe, who grew up as a member of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Terre Haute, was a member of the Comboni Missionaries religious order and was ministering in Juba as a high school principal.
Two years later, the Sudanese government expelled him and the other members of his order in the country.
He returned home to Terre Haute for a sabbatical and soon began assisting at St. Patrick Parish. In early 1995, he was asked to lead the parishes of Holy Family, St. Andrew and St. Mary in Richmond, and has ministered there ever since. He became a priest of the archdiocese in 2000.
Although a world away in many ways from his pastoral experience in Richmond, Father Riebe said the eight years that he spent in Sudan prepared him well for parish ministry in the archdiocese.
While he saw extreme material poverty in war-torn Juba, he saw a spiritual richness in the people who lived there.
“The Sudanese helped me. They’re people of such deep faith,” Father Riebe said. “We missionaries would lament that this [poverty and war] were unjust, that this was terrible. And they would witness to us that with faith comes the patience that we don’t necessarily have. [They would say,] ‘In the end, God will make all things right.’ ”
A bride of Christ: Desire for Christ leads Bishop Chatard graduate to life as Dominican sister
By Sean Gallagher
As a student at Bishop Chatard High School in Indianapolis, Katherine Lee had her mind set on becoming a lawyer, getting married and having a family.
During the Christmas break of her senior year in 2006, she shadowed a lawyer at a top-notch law firm in Indianapolis to see what a typical day in her future lucrative career might be like.
“At the end of the day, this lawyer said to me, ‘You can have all of this [in reference to his spacious office], any luxury—cars, houses, money. Anything that you could want in the world you could have,’ ” she said. “Rather than being overjoyed at this, I heard a voice in the back of my heart say, ‘Is that all that there is?’ ”
Five years later, she found what was missing—and more riches than she could have imagined when standing in that lawyer’s office—when she professed vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as a member of the
Nashville, Tenn.-based Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia. She is now known by her religious name, Sister Imelda Grace Lee.
“As I began my time at [Indiana University in Bloomington], I began to go to daily Mass and pray the [Liturgy of the Hours] daily,” Sister Imelda Grace said. “Through this, my desire for Christ grew and deepened, and I longed for him to be everything for me, my sole treasure. In return, I longed to give myself to him completely and entirely without reserve.”
It was during the first of the two years she spent in Bloomington that she began actively discerning a call to religious life.
“It is really beautiful to look back and see how the Lord has been at work through my life, and to see how he has taken those things that I wanted and transformed them into something more wonderful than I could have ever planned or chosen for myself,” Sister Imelda Grace said. “I am truly a bride—the Bride of Christ—and I am truly a mother, a mother to souls.
“Though I am not a lawyer fighting for the truth, I am a Dominican defending the truth, proclaiming the truth and living for the truth.”
(For news from the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, log on to the website of The Criterion at www.CriterionOnline.com)
Diocese of Lafayette
No briefs available this week
(For news from the Diocese of Lafayette, log on to the website of The Catholic Moment at www.thecatholicmoment.org)