Archdiocese of Indianapolis

As far as memorable days go, they just didn’t get much more remarkable than July 20 this year for Benjamin “Ben” and Leigh Sargeant.

That day, Ben and the couple’s 8-year-old son Dominic walked among a group of first Communicants, leading a eucharistic procession of 50,000-plus participants in downtown Indianapolis during the National Eucharistic Congress.

“We got to wave to the rest of the family as we walked by, and then they followed along with the rest of the procession,” Ben says of Leigh and their four other children, ages 10 and younger.

“Today is our 11th anniversary,” says Leigh, as Ben smiles and gives her a side hug. “Getting to celebrate it today is really a blessing.”

A tremendous part of that blessing is the very existence of Leigh and the couple’s 1-year-old son Isaiah, with whom she was just nine weeks pregnant when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/08-23/marriage.html

When the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics took place in Paris, many were shocked by what appeared to be a mocking of The Last Supper. Countless people condemned the event.

The response at All Saints Parish in Dearborn County was a little different: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/08-23/earrings.html

American Sign Language (ASL) Interpreters Needed!

The Disabilities Ministry of the archdiocesan Office of Catechesis is in urgent need of ASL interpreters for 7:30 a.m. Mass at St. Jude Parish in Indianapolis, and sacramental prep assistance for two children at St. Matthew the Apostle Parish in Indianapolis.

For more information, contact Jenny Bryans, Disabilities Ministry Coordinator, at [email protected] or 317-236-1448.

As another college school year begins, first-year students especially have an intense desire to be welcomed, accepted and embraced by their peers as they begin this exciting and anxious turning point in their lives.

In her work with college students the past six years—and from her own college experience—Meagan Morrisey understands that desire for a feeling of belonging. At the same time, the director of the archdiocese’s young adult and college campus ministry has a poignant reminder for all college students.

“I think a really big question that people in that age group have relates to identity. Who am I? Who is God? And what does that mean for my life?” says Morrisey, a 2018 graduate of Auburn University in Alabama.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/08-23/college.html

IndyCatholic

When Isaac Siefker attended his first archdiocesan seminarian convocation in 2017, he couldn’t have imagined that, seven years later, he would walk at the head of a eucharistic procession of more than 50,000 Catholics through the streets of downtown Indianapolis.

Yet that is exactly what he did a month ago at the culminating event of the 10th National Eucharistic Congress held in the city.

Siefker, a member of St. John the Apostle Parish in Bloomington entering his final year of priestly formation at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in St. Meinrad, was the cross-bearer at the front of the massive eucharistic procession that took place on July 20 in Indianapolis.

He reflected on the procession and the congress during the recent archdiocesan seminarian convocation on Aug. 11-14 at Our Lady of Fatima Retreat House in Indianapolis. It was the last convocation for Siefker before he expects to be ordained a priest for the Church in central and southern Indiana next June.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/08-23/convocation.html

Archdiocese of Indianapolis Vocations Office

The joy that Rachel Gilman and Megan Lauritsen show in their work—and their relationships with God—shines through in the advice they have for high school youths to draw closer to Jesus Christ in their daily lives.

In moments of laughter and reverence, the two leaders of youth ministry in the archdiocese shared the following tips to help students in Catholic and public high schools embrace God during their classes, their sports and other activities in this new school year.

Read more here: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/08-23/highschool.html

The archdiocese’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) recently presented its highest honor—the St. John Bosco Medal—to eight individuals for their outstanding service to children and youths.

This week, we highlight four of the winners: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/08-09/cyo.html

CYO, Indianapolis

After Christina Tuley accepted the position of secretary for the archdiocesan Office of Worship in September of 1991.

Since then, Tuley has impacted thousands of lives in the archdiocese in numerous, unseen ways.

If the archbishop came to your parish for Mass, confirmation or just to visit, she worked with the parish staff to coordinate it.

If you were confirmed at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis, she helped coordinate that, too.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/08-09/tuley.html

Catholics from across central and southern Indiana are invited to take part in a series of listening sessions starting at 2 p.m. on Aug. 24 at St. Louis Parish, 13 St. Louis Place, in Batesville that will be part of a pastoral planning process for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.

The process, which is expected to take place over two years, is aimed at answering three questions: “Where are we today?”; Where is God calling us to be?; and “How will we get there together?”

Archdiocesan leaders have noted that answering the three questions will involve attentive listening, prayerful discernment and collaborative engagement.

In the coming months, seven listening sessions related to the process will take place across central and southern Indiana. An online survey related to the planning process will also soon be available on the archdiocesan website.

Read more:

First listening session for archdiocesan planning process is set for Aug. 24 (August 9, 2024) Catholics from across central and southern Indiana are invited to take part in a series of listening sessions starting at 2 p.m. on Aug. 24 at St. Louis Parish, 13 St. Louis Place, in Batesville that will be part of a pastoral planning process for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.

Bishop Bruté Days, the archdiocese’s annual vocations camp, keeps growing. Last year, it set an attendance record with 59 high school-age boys taking part in the three-day event at Bishop Simon Bruté College Seminary in Indianapolis.

This year, the number of participants was 70 for the high school-age portion of Bishop Bruté Days on July 8-10. They came from 25 parishes across central and southern Indiana, as well as faith communities in the Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky., and the Diocese of Lafayette, Ind.

The growth in the high school participants led to scheduling a one-day junior high Bishop Bruté Days on July 11, the day after the high schoolers completed their camp. There were 39 seventh- and eighth-graders who participated in the junior high camp this year.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/08-09/brutedays.html

Archdiocese of Indianapolis Vocations Office Bishop Simon Bruté College Seminary

Mary Theisen-Lappen could never have planned out her path to the Summer Olympics in Paris.

Four years ago, the women’s weightlifting competitor—now a member of the parish community of St. Paul Catholic Center in Bloomington—was working as a high school track and field coach after having competed in various field events as an undergraduate at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, where she graduated about 10 years ago.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted schools across the country, and Theisen-Lappen lost her coaching job.

That eventually led her on an amazing and unpredictable journey to an Olympic dream she had never even thought was possible, taking up women’s weightlifting in the 81-plus kilogram superheavyweight division and moving to Bloomington to train. During the past 18 months, she competed in weightlifting meets around the world that resulted in her qualifying to represent the United States at the Olympics with two other women and two men on its weightlifting team.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/08-09/weightlifter.html

St. Paul Catholic Center

When Cole Hocker raced to a gold medal and an Olympic record in the 1500- meter run in Paris on August 6, a television commentator called it a moment that “shocked the world.”

All hype aside, the thrilling surge by the 2019 graduate of Cathedral High School in Indianapolis past previous world- and Olympic champions in the final stretch of the race was breathtaking and historic—making him just the fourth American in Olympic history to win this signature race.

And while the 23-year-old Hocker believes he can win any race he runs—and he had that belief about the 2024 Olympics—the fire and joy he showed immediately after crossing the finish line also soon turned to a stunned expression of awe, reflecting that what he had just done was true, that the dream he was now living was real.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/08-23/hocker.html

Cathedral High School

Brian Cain speaks enthusiastically about his job assembling engines at the Subaru car manufacturing plant in Lafayette, Ind., his tone animated by pride and joy in his work.

There were some items he needed to have before starting the job, though—long-sleeved shirts, jeans, steel-toed shoes and some tools. He estimates the total cost for the items was between $500-$1,000.

“Most guys coming out of prison don’t have that kind of money,” notes Cain, who re-entered society on Nov. 6 last fall. “You have to have those things to start. You can maybe go to Goodwill or some churches to see how they can help, but that takes time.

“So, when [the employers] ask when you can start and you have to say, ‘I don’t know’ because you don’t know when you’ll be able to get the things you need, they’re just going to move on to someone else.”

It’s a scenario Cain is grateful to have avoided, thanks to funding from the archdiocesan Corrections Ministry’s Re-entry Gift Program.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/07-19/jail.html

Miguel Márquez Herrera had a message for his classmates who had just graduated with him from the archdiocese’s Intercultural Pastoral Institute (IPI): Be bridge builders as you begin your ministry in service of the Church.

“It is important that we are very clear that our duty and responsibility as pastoral leaders is to build bridges between our parishes, but especially among our ministries,” he said. “May they be solid bridges that lead us to paths where we can all walk together in synodality.”

Herrera, a member of St. Mary Parish in Indianapolis, was chosen to give a speech on behalf of his classmates during IPI’s Pastoral Leadership certification program held on June 4 at Our Lady of Fatima Retreat House in Indianapolis.

A program of the archdiocesan Intercultural Ministry Office, IPI forms pastoral and catechetical leaders within the various ethnic communities in the archdiocese and the Lafayette Diocese.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/07-19/ipi.html

They came en masse to the National Eucharistic Congress. They could be seen pushing strollers, pulling wagons, hauling diaper bags, calming crying children and herding kids who try to stray.

But they were also seen playing, laughing, singing and dancing silly moves to upbeat songs.

And they were seen in holy moments, praying together in adoration, kneeling as the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance passed by, standing in line to receive the Eucharist.

They were the domestic Church, families forming their children in the Catholic faith and witnessing to the world about God’s love.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/07-26/families.html

Walk through the halls of the Indiana Convention Center, in Lucas Oil Stadium or the nearby downtown streets of Indianapolis from July 17-21 during the National Eucharistic Congress and you were sure to see a wide variety of clerical attire and religious habits.

Priests and seminarians were among the crowds, sometimes in black shirts with a Roman collar, at other times in cassocks. Men and women religious showed off a great spectrum of colors and styles, from the white habits of Dominicans to the black habits of Benedictines and nearly every other color in between.

Nearly 10% of all congress attendees were bishops, priests, deacons, seminarians or religious, with some 200 bishops, 1,300 priests, 650 deacons, 700 seminarians and 1,200 men and women religious.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/07-26/vocations.html

It was nearly three years in the making, and we have no doubt that the Holy Spirit was present among those who attended the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis on July 17-21.

Bishop Daniel E. Flores’ statement poignantly captures how the 50,000 who attended this life-changing gathering united as pilgrims of faith. They departed on July 21, reminded at the closing Mass by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle that “a eucharistic people is a missionary and evangelizing people.”

This week’s issue of The Criterion focuses on the congress as our staff spent all five days reporting on sessions, attending workshops and Masses, and taking part in a eucharistic procession that filled the streets of downtown Indianapolis on July 20.

Read our whole special edition here: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/07-26/issue.html

Criterion editor emeritus John F. (Jack) Fink died on July 17 in Indianapolis. He was 92.

Read about the life of this ‘icon of the Catholic press’ here: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/07-26/johnfink.html

From our partners at OSV News

The five days of the 10th National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis could not have ended in a more fitting way -- with the celebration of the Eucharist with more than 50,000 people gathered at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Usually the home field of the Indianapolis Colts, for one last day, the stadium was filled with people adoring and praising Jesus Christ, hearts overflowing with love and gratitude for what they had experienced over the past week.

The Mass was celebrated by papal envoy Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, who was present in Indianapolis for the entire congress.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/national/07-21-dayfive.html

See a photo gallery from today's Closing Mass of the National Eucharistic Conference: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/files/2024/07-26/gallery-day05-closing/index.html

The closing Mass of the National Eucharistic Congress is this morning. As the five-day event ends, participants are called to go back to their "communities across the country with renewed passion for Christ and filled with grace to share."

For anyone whose life has been blessed by a great love, at least two questions must be considered:

How do I show the depth of my love and appreciation for this wondrous gift?

And how do I let the world know how much this person means to me?

On the sun-kissed afternoon of July 20, more than 50,000 Catholics from across the country answered these questions of the heart by sharing their reverence, awe and love for Jesus Christ and his life-changing and world-changing gift of the Eucharist during an emotionally-charged eucharistic procession through the streets of downtown Indianapolis.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/07-26/procession.html

(Photo by Tom Nichols)

Thousands and thousands of people are taking part in a massive Eucharistic Procession in downtown Indianapolis today. More pictures and coverage from The Criterion will be coming!

There's a lot that's been going on at the National Eucharistic Congress!

See all of our news coverage so far of Day Three here: https://www.archindy.org/congress/daythree.html

And see photos from throughout the day here: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/files/2024/07-26/gallery-day03/index.html

As always, there is more to come as this historic event with 50,000 Catholics from across U.S. continues!

National Eucharistic Revival

As 10-year-old Annabel Cougron packed the pre-made meals in a large box at the end of an assembly line, she admitted she had never gone hungry. But she considered what that might feel like for someone who had.

“Like their stomachs must be hurting and it doesn’t feel good,” she said.

But helping such people “feels good,” a lesson Annabel learned on July 18 while helping package meals for the Million Meal Movement as a service project during the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis.

Read more: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/07-26/service.html

See photos from our Criterion staff members who were downtown in Indianapolis for day two of the https://www.archindy.org/criterion/files/2024/07-26/gallery-day02/index.html

Cardinal Luis Tagle, the special envoy of Pope Francis to the National Eucharistic Congress, celebrates a Mass at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis on Thursday, July 18. He will also celebrate the closing Mass of the Congress on Sunday.

Read more here: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/local/2024/07-26/tagle.html

National Eucharistic Revival

See photos taken by our Criterion news reporters of the Opening Night of the National Eucharistic Congress last night: https://www.archindy.org/criterion/files/2024/07-26/gallery-day01-opening/index.html

Welcome to all those coming into Indianapolis today for the National Eucharistic Congress! We're glad to have you here and are as excited as you are for what's to come.

With registration lines out the door of the Indiana Convention Center and into the blocks beyond, a LOT of people are showing up to the National Eucharistic Congress!