Last updated 09/02/2010 10:58 PM
Catholic News Around Indiana
Compiled by Brandon A. Evans
Each week, news from the five Catholic dioceses in Indiana is gathered from the websites of their respective newspapers. Below is the most recent edition of "Catholic News Around Indiana." You can click on the name of the diocese below to see news from that area, check out past issues or just start reading from the top down.
Choose a Diocese: Fort Wayne-South Bend | Gary | Indianapolis | Lafayette
Past issues: August 23, 2010 | August 16, 2010 | August 9, 2010
Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend
St. Vincent de Paul Society holds regional meeting in Fort Wayne
By Donna Brooke
FORT WAYNE — The Fort Wayne District Council hosted the Mideast Regional Meeting of the St. Vincent de Paul Society on the weekend of Aug. 6-8.
Nearly 150 People from Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Michigan gathered for a weekend of business, spirituality and Vincentian family friendship. On Friday night, the spiritual director for the Fort Wayne district, Father Thom Lombardi, greeted everyone as they gathered for an informal evening of entertainment and fellowship.
Saturday morning included a welcome by Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry, and business meetings with the National President Joe Flannigan; the National Executive Director Roger Playwin; and the Vice President of the Mideast Region Jim Dumont.
Flannigan announced that the cause for the canonization of Blessed Frederic Ozanam, the St. Vincent de Paul founder, was moving forward. The afternoon consisted of three Vincentian- related training and spirituality sessions.
Bishop-emeritus John M. D’Arcy celebrated Mass at St. Charles Borromeo Parish for the Vincentians and parishioners. The day ended with a banquet and entertainment.
The St. Vincent de Paul Society is the largest Catholic lay organization in the world with a presence in 145 countries with 700,000 members from all walks of life who help the disadvantaged. The services that are provided by the society range from running homeless shelters, feeding the hungry, visiting the ill and those in prison, helping people with job searches, clothing those in need, helping with living expenses and donating furniture and appliances.
The society’s core values encompass holiness of life, service of the poor, humility, simplicity, and charity and justice.
(For this story and more 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
No briefs available this week
(For news from the Diocese of Gary, log on to the website of the Northwest Indiana Catholic at www.nwicatholic.com)
Archdiocese of Indianapolis
Extra effort helps Mother Theodore Catholic Academies reach new goal for sports programs
By John Shaughnessy
For a boy who loves football and the Indianapolis Colts, 9-year-old Nick looked like he had just entered his personal version of heaven.
He beamed as he walked across the green, spongy artificial turf inside the indoor football field that the Colts use for practice—a facility that features huge banners of the team’s championship years.
And Nick’s eyes appeared to get even bigger when he spotted a tackling dummy. Building up a head of steam, he ran toward the dummy and smashed into it. Then as he rose from the turf, Nick flashed one of those “life doesn’t get much better than this!” grins.
“This is awesome!” he said. “We get to be in the place where the Colts play, and we get a lot of gear, too. I love football!”
In the after-school hours of Aug. 18, Nick and 44 other boys savored the memorable experience of playing and practicing for one day on the same field where Peyton Manning, Dwight Freeney and the other Colts get ready for games.
It was the start of a football season that organizers hope will make a difference in the boys’ lives—and in the future of the Mother Theodore Catholic Academies, the archdiocesan inner-city Indianapolis schools where many of these boys attend.
For the first time this year, the Mother Theodore Catholic Academies—Central Catholic School, Holy Angels School, Holy Cross Central School and St. Philip Neri School—plus the charter schools of Andrew Academy and Padua Academy will have combined football teams that play in the Catholic Youth Organization football league.
And while the CYO season doesn’t officially start with games until the weekend of Sept. 11-12, the teams that will represent the Mother Theodore Catholic Academies have already won an amazing victory—one that came about because of a dream shared by a core group of people and the generosity of Colts’ president Bill Polian.
Preparation for new Mass translation to begin in archdiocese
By Sean Gallagher
Father Patrick Beidelman was born in 1972, two years after the last major change in the texts of the Mass was introduced. Those texts were contained within the first edition of the Roman Missal promulgated after the Second Vatican Council, which allowed for the Mass to be prayed in English.
Over the course of the next 15 months, he, as archdiocesan director of liturgy, will help ministry leaders across central and southern Indiana prepare themselves for the introduction of the next major revision in the English texts of the Mass, which will begin to be used on Nov. 27, 2011.
“This [current translation] is all I’ve ever known,” said Father Beidelman. “For me personally, [preparing for the new translation] gives me a sense of how the Church continues to develop its prayer and worship over time.”
“…I recognize that the development of liturgy over time, guided and instructed by the magisterium of the Church, has helped maintain the continuity of the Church’s prayer over all the centuries since the time of Christ. Especially since Vatican II, the development of our ritual of prayer has sought to foster the proper celebration of the Mass while at the same time fostering the full, active and conscious participation of all the faithful.”
Included among the ministry leaders that Father Beidelman and other archdiocesan Office of Worship staff members will meet with over the next 15 months are: priests, deacons, deacon candidates, parish life coordinators and other lay parish staff members and those involved in liturgical and music ministry.
Video presentations on the new translation of the Mass, to be posted on the archdiocese’s Web site, will be geared for teachers, catechists and those who minister to youths and young adults.
“My hope, as we work with those in leadership in our parish and school communities in the archdiocese,” Father Beidelman said, “is that they themselves will learn this new translation and come to a deeper understanding of the meaning of our worship of God in the Mass.”
(For these stories and more 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)