December 15, 2006

Dudley named director of religious education in Archdiocese of Washington

By Sean Gallagher

Beginning Jan. 1, Harry Dudley, associate executive director for faith formation in the archdiocese’s Office of Catholic Education (OCE), will become the director of religious education for the Archdiocese of Washington.

Over the first six months of 2007, he will remain in his position in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and will carry out his duties from Washington, D.C., and through regular trips here.

The change in ministry for Dudley is especially welcome to him because he and his wife are both originally from the Washington, D.C., area.

“The only thing that made me consider leaving here, because I was not unhappy here, was the opportunity to go home,” Dudley said.

Annette “Mickey” Lentz, archdiocesan executive director for Catholic education and faith formation, said she is happy for her OCE colleague.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for Harry,” she said. “Harry’s done a fine job for us in his leadership in faith formation in the last [seven] years in the archdiocese. We’ll miss him.”

In reflecting on the work that Dudley has done to improve faith formation in the archdiocese, Lentz said that his legacy will be that he helped build “a deeper understanding of … theology and how we communicate and integrate that into our curriculum, both in our schools and in our faith formation programs.”

For his part, Dudley said he values the opportunity to collaborate with his fellow OCE staff members, and principals and directors of religious education across central and southern Indiana.

“All of those [people] have been a real gift for me as well as just working with the most incredible team I’ve ever been on,” he said. “The challenge for me [in Washington] is that I’m going to get a chance to build and form a team there that has been working separately but will now be working together.

“I think the experience here will certainly enrich that.” †

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