Catholic News Around Indiana
Compiled by Brandon A. Evans
Diocese of Evansville
No briefs available this week
(For news from the Diocese of Evansville, log on to the website of The Message at www.themessageonline.org)
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)
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)