Large parish in Greenfield began in small ways 150 years ago

Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein, center, prays at the altar during a Sept. 19 Mass at St. Michael Church in Greenfield. The Mass celebrated the 150th anniversary of the founding of the parish. Joining Archbishop Buechlein at the altar are, from left, Father Stanley Herber, Deacon Wayne Davis, Benedictine Father Severin Messick, St. Michael’s current pastor, and Father Joseph Riedman. Father Herber and Father Riedman are previous pastors. Standing behind the clergy are altar servers and extraordinary ministers of holy Communion. (Submitted photo)

By Sean Gallagher

Hundreds of members of St. Michael Parish in Greenfield gathered on Sept. 19 at the parish’s church to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its founding with a Mass at which Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein was the principal celebrant.

After the Mass, well-wishers filled the parish’s activity center for a reception and meal to continue the anniversary celebration.

St. Michael Parish has more than 1,100 households among its members. It has a bustling school, and sponsors many ministries and faith formation programs.

But it wasn’t always that way.

In fact, according to longtime St. Michael parishioner Joseph Padgett, the parish only started to grow dramatically during the past 60 years.

“From 1953 on, the growth began to really show up,” Padgett said. “I think it was the baby boom after the war.”

That was a big change for Padgett, who is 83.

He and his family moved to Greenfield in 1937 when he was 10, and there were only a few dozen families in the parish. St. Michael Parish had received its first resident pastor, Father John Riedinger, only a few years earlier.

In the late 19th century, Franciscan priests ministering at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish on Indianapolis’ near south side would travel by train to Greenfield to celebrate Mass there on Sundays.

But in the first two decades of the 20th century, only one or two Masses a month were celebrated at St. Michael when the local economy worsened and many Catholic families moved away.

At the time that Padgett moved to Greenfield, St. Michael’s pastor divided his time between St. Michael and St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in nearby Fortville.

“About four or five of us boys were [altar] servers, and we went back and forth on Sunday serving [Mass] at Fortville,” Padgett said. “Father [Daniel] Nolan came in, and was there for 25 years after Father [Dennis] Spalding.”

Padgett also attributed much of the later growth at St. Michael to the establishment of the parish’s school.

That occurred when the parish, under the direction of Father Nolan, moved from its previous location in the center of Greenfield—directly behind the home of Greenfield native and famous Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley—to a larger location on the west side of Greenfield.

Members of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods staffed the school at its beginning.

Before the parish began its school in 1953, Padgett said that many Catholic families living in western Hancock County were members of Holy Spirit Parish on the far east side of Indianapolis, where there was a parochial school. After St. Michael opened its school, many of those families joined the Greenfield parish.

This quick growth in the 1950s, though, might have come to a stop later in the decade when the school was in danger of closing.

Padgett led a committee in the parish in 1959 to encourage more parishioners to put their support behind the school.

“It worked out,” Padgett said. “People did donate more money. They did want the school.”

Over the past half century, St. Michael Parish has grown tremendously.

And, according to Benedictine Father Severin Messick, St. Michael’s pastor since 1998, it is now the spiritual home of many faith-filled young families.

“St. Michael’s is a young parish,” Father Severin said. “There’s a lot of energy. And there’s a deep sense of faith here among the young as well as the old. That makes it enjoyable working with the people and being their pastor.”

Christie Murphy is a mother in one of those young families. She and her family became members of St. Michael Parish in 1998.

Three of her four children have been born since her family moved to Greenfield.

“I met a lot of other moms that were in the same place that I was with young kids,” Murphy said. “We had a lot of common interests. Some of my very best friends are people I met in that group.”

St. Michael Parish didn’t just help Murphy in her own life of faith. It also nurtured the faith of her father, Deacon Wayne Davis, who ministers there.

“My dad definitely grew a lot when he came into St. Michael’s,” Murphy said. “I feel like he grew a lot when he moved to St. Michael’s—just because of the people, the community. They’re very strong. It’s just so welcoming that you just want to be there.”

Murphy has high hopes for the future of St. Michael Parish.

“There are a lot of very faith-filled families there,” she said. “I’m looking forward to my kids growing even more there with their friends and with other parishioners.”

Those hopes are shared by Father Severin.

“I would hope that we would become more prayerful, and that our faith would grow deeper than it is and our witness stronger to the outside world as we grow toward the future,” he said. “Originally, we were a very small minority in a very Protestant town.”

(To learn more about St. Michael Parish in Greenfield, log on to www.stmichaelsgrfld.org.) †