Archdiocesan awards honor adult and high school student for respect life efforts
Madilyn Wethington, a senior at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis, poses with Caren LeMark, her theology teacher and teacher moderator of the school’s Royals 4 Life Club, during the Right to Life of Indianapolis fundraiser banquet at the Marriott Hotel in Indianapolis on Sept. 25. Wethington is the winner of this year’s archdiocesan Our Lady of Guadalupe Pro-Life Youth Award. (Submitted photo)
By Natalie Hoefer
Each year, the archdiocesan Office of Human Life and Dignity seeks nominations for an adult or married couple to receive the Archbishop O’Meara Respect Life Award and a high school student to receive the Our Lady of Guadalupe Pro-Life Youth and their work to uphold the dignity of human life. (Related story: Respect Life Mass honors truth that each person ‘is loved into existence by God’)
‘A true firecracker for life’
Madilyn Wethington, this year’s winner of the archdiocesan Our Lady of Guadalupe Pro-Life Youth Award, experienced peer pressure last school year—in a good way.
Her friends—fellow classmates at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis—were going to the Indiana March for Life and youth rally in Indianapolis on Jan. 22 this year, “and they had kind of peer-pressured me to go,” she says.
“It was, I think, the best thing that I could have been peer-pressured into doing.”
For Wethington, a junior at the time, the pro-life movement was still a new concept. She had been raised in various non-denominational Protestant churches and was welcomed into the full communion of the Church at age 14 at St. Jude Church in Indianapolis, where she is still a member.
She found the rally and march “very interesting, seeing that many youth[s] attend that kind of event.”
She joined Roncalli’s Royals 4 Life pro-life club and started talking more about the topic with the group’s teacher moderator and Wethington’s theology teacher, Caren LeMark.
It was LeMark who shared with the club members last spring about a social media internship with Voices for Life, a non-profit fighting abortion in Indiana. Wethington applied and was selected.
“We really work hard to cater to our audience and how to properly portray our message through the media,” she says. “It can be so hard to do that, especially when a lot of people like to twist words.”
The internship has also shown her “how fun it can be” to work in the pro-life movement.
“A lot of people see the movement as a whole as a really kind of dark topic and something that needs to be taken seriously, which is very true,” she says. “But I do think it truly is a movement that’s made out of love for all. I think a lot of people miss that.”
Wethington also feels that many people don’t see the scope of the pro-life cause beyond fighting abortion.
“It’s also other things like opposing the death penalty and being against poor treatment of the homeless and helping those in need, and just kind of loving everyone,” she says.
Wethington’s embrace of the broader pro-life concept shines through her actions, LeMark noted on her nomination form for the award.
“Madilyn is concerned not only with the pre-born but also with her peers and all who are vulnerable,” she wrote. “She demonstrates a largeness of heart, serving in a quiet and unassuming way, while making deliberate efforts to treat everyone with respect and care. She has the courage to step out on her own and act with integrity, inspiring those around her.”
It was LeMark who announced Wethington’s award during a meeting of the Royals 4 Life club—which the 18-year-old senior now helps lead.
“I started crying just because it was very important and it’s a very big part of my life that I really believe in,” says the sixth of Lisa and James Wethington’s seven children.
After graduating, Wethington plans to pursue a nursing degree, “something with moms and babies, like labor and delivery or neonatal [care] or pediatrics in general.”
LeMark commented on this career choice on her nomination form.
Wethington’s “compassion, creativity and witness to the intrinsic value of every human person already reflect her future vocation,” she wrote.
“She is a true firecracker for life and a model for her peers.”
Helping those in need ‘maintain their dignity’
Annissa Kellum of St. Michael Parish in Bradford receives the archdiocese’s Archbishop O’Meara Respect Life Award from Deacon Thomas Hosty during the archdiocesan Respect Life Mass at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis on Oct. 5. October is Respect Life Month in the Church in the United States. (Photo by Natalie Hoefer)
In the pro-life cause, the dignity of all human life extends beyond the womb.
And that’s where Annissa Kellum comes in. The member of St. Michael Parish in Bradford is the recipient of this year’s archdiocesan Archbishop O’Meara’s Respect Life Award.
What started as a favor temporarily storing clothes for children in need as a local school underwent renovations in 2018 has blossomed into Ann’s Angels of Hope, a ministry that seeks to uphold the dignity primarily of children but also adults in need in Crawford, Floyd and Harrison counties.
It starts with donations. Kellum uses social media to seek donations of quality, in-style clothes and shoes from the local community, as well as hygiene items and one-time needs like a meal or a bed.
Items are given to those in need based on referrals from school counselors, social workers, police officers and others.
One such person, who for security purposes wishes to remain anonymous, nominated Kellum for the respect life award.
“Her clothes closet has evolved into providing not only clothing, but toiletries, food, school supplies and any resources needed to help make our kids feel better about themselves,” he wrote. “This helps build our kids’ self-esteem and allows them to maintain a level of dignity they may not find anywhere else.”
And by making all visits one-on-one
and private, Kellum “allows those involved to maintain their dignity,” he wrote. “She helps them understand that someone does love them where they are [and] shows them that there is support here to build a better life.”
Kellum extends that dignity and support to those in Clark, Floyd, Harrison and Scott county jails battling addiction. On the day of their release, they receive clothing from Ann’s Angels of Hope “because when they get out, they have nothing,” she says.
Her promotion of human dignity moves beyond Ann’s Angels of Hope. Kellum is a mentor for women seeking help from substance addiction through Genesis House in Harrison County.
She also serves on the organization’s board and on the board for Harrison County Community Services. And she uses her experience and knowledge of local needs and resources to help the community as Harrison County’s first female county commissioner.
Kellum says she was “shocked” when she learned that she was selected to receive the archdiocese’s respect life award.
When her pastor Father Aaron Pfaff and Deacon John Jacobi, who serves at St. Michael, notified her, “I said, ‘Well, I’m honored, but I’m sure there’s more deserving people than me,’ ” she says.
Kellum cites her late mother Ann Kellum as the inspiration and role model behind all of her efforts to help the vulnerable. The “Ann” in “Ann’s Angels of Hope” was a director of religious education at St. Bernard Parish in Frenchtown and a “true servant” in her parish and local community.
“The more people I help, the more I want to help,” says Kellum. “I want to see people succeed and not fail. … This [award] really is an honor and inspires me to just want to do more.” †
