Memories to fill a century: Catholics young and old recall cathedral connections

After celebrating his first Mass on June 7, 1936, then Father Richard Kavanagh, third from left in the front row, poses in front of the rectory of SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis. Assisting him at the Mass were, from left, in the front row, Benedictine Father Bernardine Shine, Father Bernard Sheridan, Msgr. Raymond Noll and Father Barrett Tieman, and from left, in the second row, Fathers James Hickey, John Lynch and George Dunn. In the third row were seminarians Joseph Dooley, Charles Koster and an unnamed altar server.

By Sean Gallagher

One hundred. That is the number of years that SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis has been the mother church of the archdiocese.

The memories that have been created there, however, are countless.

The following are just a few of them.

Growing old with the cathedral

Born in 1918, Mary Rita Babbitt’s sole spiritual home has been Cathedral Parish.

To this day, she lives about a mile from the church. She still walks there to volunteer in the cathedral rectory one day a week.

“It’s fantastic to think that our Lord has been good enough to let me live that long,” Babbitt said through tears of gratitude after reflecting on how she has lived through much of the cathedral’s first century.

Babbitt has witnessed many historic events that happened in the cathedral.

As a student at the former St. Agnes Academy, she took part in a prayer vigil at the side of the casket of Bishop Joseph Chartrand after he died on Dec. 8, 1933.

But when asked what moment stood out most for her, Babbitt turned to a family memory.

“My daughter got to crown the Blessed Mother when she was in grade school. That was really [special],” she said.

“It’s very meaningful for me, [especially] when I think of all the things that have happened in the cathedral, and I was a part of so much of it,” Babbitt said.

She is still a part of it. At the June 29 Mass that closed the cathedral’s centennial year, Babbitt served as a lector.

Memories of marriage

Thousands of couples have professed their marriage vows in the cathedral.

On Feb. 1, 1964, Richard and Elizabeth Van Noy, now members of SS. Francis and Clare Parish in Greenwood, were married at the cathedral.

Last fall, the couple returned there for a nephew’s wedding.

“It was pretty emotional for both of us to be sitting in there with this big wedding happening, and to think that that was where I walked down the aisle with my father,” Elizabeth said.

But it’s been more than weddings that have made the cathedral important for her.

Like his father, R. J. Van Noy, the eldest son, graduated from Cathedral High School in a commencement ceremony at the cathedral in 1983. Their youngest son, Andrew, was confirmed in the cathedral in 1989.

Now the couple is looking forward to the confirmations of their grandchildren in the cathedral in the years to come.

These special events in the life of their family happened because of the vows they professed in the cathedral 43 years ago.

In a recent e-mail, Elizabeth said that the cathedral is “a magnificent place where I have felt God’s presence on special occasions in my life.”

Planting the seeds of vocations

Msgr. Richard Kavanagh’s Irish immigrant parents were married in the cathedral on Sept. 8, 1909, less than three years after it was dedicated.

Born two years later, Msgr. Kavanagh would later attend the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grades at the former Cathedral Grade School.

Bishop Chartrand encouraged the young Richard to consider the priesthood.

“When I was in the eighth-grade, I sold The Indiana Catholic and Record at all the Masses in front of the cathedral,” said Msgr. Kavanagh, who lives at St. Paul Hermitage in Beech Gove.

“Bishop Chartrand’s office looked right down on that. And some Sundays, he would come down and say, ‘Come on up into my office,’ after I sold my papers. And he always had a bookcase full of chocolates and he’d give me a box of them.”

Msgr. Kavanagh’s interest in the priesthood must have been deeper than his love of chocolate for, now at 71 years since his ordination, he is the longest serving priest in the history of the archdiocese.

New seeds

SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral has continued to foster vocations in more recent times.

In the mid-1980s, then Msgr. Gerald Gettelfinger, now bishop of the Evansville Diocese, helped put together a time capsule that was placed in the cathedral’s cornerstone as part of a renovation of the church.

At the time, he wanted to put the picture of a boy who in the future might become a priest in the capsule.

Dan Hoyt, a member of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Indianapolis, and a friend of Msgr. Gettelfinger, told him of his young son who, at the time, “was telling people he planned on being a priest or a bartender when he grew up.”

A photo of young Michael Paul Hoyt—who was 12 at the time of the completion of the cathedral’s renovation in 1986—was placed in the time capsule.

Fast forward to 2005 and Michael Paul Hoyt was ordained Father Mary David, a monk in the Community of St. John, a vibrant French religious order that was founded in 1975 and has more than 500 members from around the world.

But the line between the time capsule and the ordination was not a straight one. Father Mary David spent time away from the Church.

After a profound conversion experience, his relationship with Christ was renewed and deepened. Eventually, he discerned and embraced with joy his call to religious life and the priesthood.

After all of his life’s twists and turns, Father Mary David looks back to his connection to SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral with gratitude.

“At that point in my life, the seeds were being planted,” he said of the placement of his photo in the time capsule.

“It was all providential that the roots were set deep at that point in my life. Once I came back to the faith and eventually entered the priesthood, I do really think of that as a foundational moment in my vocation.”

Father Mary David currently serves as prior of his religious community’s priory in Laredo, Texas. He and fellow members of the Community of St. John lead retreats and work in campus ministry.

An altar server’s story

Thousands of young boys have been altar servers in the cathedral over the past 100 years.

One of them was Rudy Schouten, who served at many Masses at the cathedral in the 1960s.

In a recent e-mail to The Criterion, Schouten, now a member of St. Mark the Evangelist Parish in the Indianapolis South Deanery, recalled his lasting memories.

“It was serious business when servers slipped into a cassock. The priests made sure of it. Our pastor was highly intolerant of ‘monkey shines.’

“But discipline didn’t seem all that essential to ensuring respect and comportment. The liturgy did that. The cathedral itself did that.

“The place was thick with everything that belongs in a church of its stature; the heavy aroma of incense filling it during the Easter Triduum, the energy of a standing-room-only congregation for midnight Mass, and the power of music driven by its giant pipe organ and that harmonious fury of the men’s choir. …

“There was also great power in the privilege of carrying the archbishop’s miter and crosier, and in the granted honor of incensing the congregation.

“As an adolescent with a normal share of pyrotechnic tendencies, I appreciated the opportunity to mix my service to the Church with a solemn responsibility for setting fire to round black pieces of charcoal, sprinkling on spoonfuls of incense, and stoking it all into a good, healthy, smoldering smoke. Gesturing to have the congregation stand as I coated them with it was a bonus. Small things were big in the cathedral.

“The cathedral was full of purpose and history. Even as a 13-year-old without much appreciation for such things, you could feel that.

“The architecture itself, and its massive qualities, seemed as much a testament to its rich heritage as they were a noble reflection of its importance for future generations of the faithful.” †