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Please join
our 60th anniversary celebration
PRAISED BE JESUS
CHRIST!
(Now and Forever)
At 3 p.m. Sunday, July 10, a special Mass will be celebrated at the
Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception to commemorate the
60th anniversary of the establishment of our Local Church and to honor
its first ordination class. All are invited.
Father Donald Hardebeck and Father Richard Puetz were ordained Feb. 2,
1945, along with Father George Lanning and Father Charles Muller, both
now deceased. John G. Bennett, the first bishop of Lafayette-in-Indiana,
who had himself been ordained a bishop in Fort Wayne on Jan. 10 that
year, was the ordaining prelate. Bishop Bennett was installed at St.
Mary Cathedral on Jan. 18, 1945.
Twenty-four counties in Northcentral Indiana were part of the Diocese of
Fort Wayne until Oct. 21, 1944, when Pope Pius XII constituted them as
an independent diocese with its See City at Lafayette. The Holy See
designated these 9,832 square miles of Northcentral Indiana the Diocese
of Lafayette-in-Indiana to distinguish it from the Diocese of Lafayette
(Louisiana), which dates to 1918.
The Catholic faith had been established on Hoosier soil for more than a
century. The new Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana had 31,700 Catholic
people (today we number 99,022). Forty-five of its 54 churches had a
resident pastor. Catholics represented just 4.5 percent of the
population.
Bishop Bennett’s first ordination class had entered the seminary for
Fort Wayne, but found themselves part of the new diocese because all
were sons of parishes here. The bishop himself was born in Dunnington,
in Benton County. Father Hardebeck was born in rural Howard County and
attended St. Patrick School, Kokomo. Father Lanning was a native of
Sweetser, Ind. His family attended nearby St. Paul, Marion. Father
Muller was born in Talbot, and Father Puetz in rural Benton County near
Ambia. Both attended St. Mary, Dunnington. Father Muller and Father
Puetz had the extraordinary distinction of being classmates from second
grade through ordination and were lifelong friends. They even received
their first priestly assignments to the same city, Muncie. Father Muller
died in 1974. Father Lanning died in 1996.
The priests to be honored on July 10 are both true pioneers of the
Church in this area. Father Hardebeck was the founding pastor of two
parishes: St. Cecilia in DeMotte and the Church of the Blessed Sacrament
in West Lafayette. At his retirement celebration in 1994, Father
Hardebeck gave a humorous glimpse of the “way things were.” He recalled
being made a pastor for the first time — of Sorrowful Mother, Wheatfield
— only four years after ordination. “What did I care if the rectory had
only outside plumbing, now I would be a pastor!” he said. He also served
the people of Sacred Heart, Fowler; St. Charles, Peru; St. Lawrence,
Muncie; and St. Joseph, Delphi. He was pastor at Blessed Sacrament for
28 years.
Father Puetz hails from a large Catholic family, eighth of 11 children.
He first was assigned as associate at St. Lawrence, Muncie, and has been
pastor of five parishes: St. Francis, Attica; Our Lady of the Lakes,
Monticello (where he oversaw the “bricks and mortar” construction of the
parish’s present church); St. Joseph, Elwood; St. Charles, Peru; and St.
Joseph, Rochester. He also helped at St. Joseph, Covington, and was a
senior associate at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. He served as chaplain for
the Sisters of St. Joseph at Tipton. Father Puetz once was asked if he
were everybody’s pastor, what would his wisdom be. “Pray,” he said.
“There’s too much talking and not enough praying.”
Both Father Hardebeck, 86, and Father Puetz, 86, remain active in
retirement. Father Hardebeck is Catholic chaplain at University Place,
West Lafayette, where he resides. He is looking forward to the day when
a chapel is part of the facilities there. Father Puetz is in residence
and chaplain at St. Elizabeth Healthcare Center in Delphi. Since 1992,
Father Puetz also has been spiritual director for the Legion of Mary in
the diocese.
Here is a noteworthy sidebar: Bishop Bennett had a second ordination
class in 1945. Father Harold (“Pat”) Weller was ordained Aug. 16, 1945.
Now 93, he is a very active chaplain at St. Mary’s Healthcare Center in
Lafayette.
While it often has been suggested that this Local Church was established
as a “rural diocese,” the reality is, from the very start, the Catholic
population of Northcentral Indiana has become less rural and more urban
and suburban. There is much rural landscape, to be sure, with thousands
of acres of corn and soybeans and amber waves of grain. Any doubts that
this is God’s country dissipate when time is taken to soak in the beauty
of a sunset in rural Tipton County or to see the sun come up on a misty
morning in Pulaski. But farm folks grow fewer and fewer. In the
meantime, Our Lady of Grace, Noblesville, was founded in 1944, the first
new parish of the new diocese; then Zionsville (St. Alphonsus, 1945);
Lake Village (St. Augusta, 1947); West Lafayette (St. Thomas Aquinas,
1951); Monticello (Our Lady of the Lakes, 1952); DeMotte (St. Cecilia,
1952); Winchester (St. Joseph, 1952); Anderson (St. Ambrose, 1954);
Carmel (Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, 1955); and West Lafayette (Blessed
Sacrament, 1957).
People have migrated from the Chicago area into Newton, Jasper, White
and Fulton counties. Missions grew to parishes at Wheatfield,
Francesville, Medaryville, Lucerne. People from the Indianapolis area
went north into Montgomery, Boone, Hamilton and Madison counties.
Benton, Carroll, Warren and Fountain county residents came to Lafayette.
Ironically, Bishop Bennett dedicated a large new church at Dunnington in
1952 on the eve of establishing Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in 1955. The
contrast today is striking. Bishop Bennett was actually opposed by
numbers of clergy for creating Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in, then, so
vacant an area. Today Dunnington has 90 households; Our Lady of Mt.
Carmel has more than 2,500 households.
From the 1970s onward, other parishes have been added to the list: St.
Louis de Montfort, Fishers, 1978; St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Carmel, 1981;
Holy Spirit at Geist, 1991; and St. Maria Goretti, Westfield, 1995.
Today more than 36 percent of the Catholic population of the Diocese of
Lafayette resides in Hamilton and Boone counties (in the Carmel
Deanery).
In the past 10 years, the diocese has grown by about 3,000 households to
34,400. Almost all of that growth has been in the Carmel Deanery. The
Fowler Deanery has 200 fewer households. The Anderson Deanery is down
150. The Lafayette Deanery is up 400 households. Logansport is down 500.
Muncie is up 100.
Today, clustering parishes is a huge challenge. There are, in fact,
eight clusters now. And, depending on the availability of clergy, there
may be as many as eight more. At the same time, a new parish will be
started in Fall Creek Township of Hamilton County. The determination, in
an age of changing demographics and fewer priests, is to keep churches
open and build new ones, even as we beseech the Lord of the Harvest to
give this Local Church priests in sufficient numbers to provide quality
ministry for the Catholics of Northcentral Indiana.
On June 4, I called/ordained two men, Father Christopher Weldon and
Father Jeffrey Martin, to the priesthood. It was a moment of joy and
excitement. Sixty years ago, Bishop Bennett laid the hands of ordination
on Father Donald Hardebeck and Father Richard Puetz. I cannot but
imagine that the same joy and excitement was felt in 1945, even if it
was an icy February day. Weather can’t dampen a joyous spirit. It should
remind all that God is faithful. Men have heard and men still do hear
the call to serve their brothers and sisters in ordained ministry. Let
us all thank God for these men, for all that they have done, are doing
and will do for the sake of the Kingdom of God.
It is hoped that people from throughout the 9,832 square miles that
comprise the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana will participate in the
anniversary Mass on July 10. A ticket is not needed. Y’all come! |
