2024 Vocations Awareness Supplement
Father Thomas Kovatch finds happiness in leading others
to Christ and the Church in Bloomington and around the world
Father Thomas Kovatch poses with Noah Jager, left, and Anthony Leal, both members of St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Bloomington, at Columbus North High School in Columbus in March 2020 after Jager’s and Leal’s Bloomington South High School boys basketball team won its sectional in the Indiana High School Athletic Association boys basketball tournament. (Submitted photo).
By Sean Gallagher
BLOOMINGTON—Father Thomas Kovatch loves the Eucharist so much that he celebrates it for his parishioners every day—even on those days when he’s at his parish but taking a day off.
“I can’t imagine going a day without Mass in my life. I just can’t,” he said. “It’s not something that I have to do. It’s something that I love to do.”
Father Kovatch has lived out this commitment to the Mass since 2008 when he was first assigned to be a pastor in the archdiocese, leading St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross Parish in Bright. Since 2011, he has served as pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Bloomington. (Related: See more stories about religious vocations)
The effects of his commitment to the Eucharist reach out to the rest of his ministry as an archdiocesan priest, helping to draw his parishioners closer to Christ and the Church in their daily lives and even sharing the faith with them in mission trips to Uganda in east Africa.
Wherever he goes, Father Kovatch shows his commitment to his priestly life and ministry by wearing a Roman collar. That’s his way of showing his availability to others.
“How can I, as a priest, not wear the collar?” he asked. “The availability goes into that. That’s my mindset. I’m a priest. I’m not just here for the people of St. Charles. I’m here for anybody that sees me anywhere.”
Bringing the presence of God to others
“I just feel the presence of God so intimately during Mass that it just has a feel that I wish others could feel,” he said. “And I think that some laity feel it when they’re at Mass or in adoration. There’s something that just grabs you.”
An important way that Father Kovatch helps his parishioners be open to the presence of God at Mass and the rest of their lives is through another commitment he’s made as a pastor: to hear confessions before every Mass he celebrates.
The sacrament of penance, he said, is like the Mass because it is “another time when the presence of God is right there in the priest.”
“When we absolve them, we don’t say, ‘Jesus absolves you,’ ” Father Kovatch said. “The words are, ‘I absolve you.’ Now, I’m not the one absolving them. Christ is using me in that sacrament.”
A main reason for making himself available for the sacrament of penance is to help Catholics be reconciled to God when they have missed going to Sunday Mass, something that many recent studies have shown a majority of Catholics in the U.S. do.
Father Kovatch knows the effects of missing Mass personally. As a young adult, he fell away from the practice of his faith.
“We have to be ready to receive the Eucharist,” said Father Kovatch, 66. “And if we miss Mass—which I did for a number of years myself—then we need to have the opportunity to go and confess that before I go and receive the Eucharist, along with the other sins.”
Before becoming an archdiocesan seminarian in his 40s and being ordained in 2007 at 49, Father Kovatch served in the U.S. Marines and later became a successful businessman.
He started going to Mass daily when discerning if God might be calling him to the priesthood.
“I did that before I entered the seminary and I haven’t stopped that since,” Father Kovatch said. “It’s just very powerful.”
‘He truly jumped all in’
Kim Sprague saw Father Kovatch’s dedication to the Eucharist and confession when he was pastor of St. Teresa and she was the parish’s director of religious education.
“He always had a deep sense of prayer,” said Sprague, who continues to serve at St. Teresa, as well as at
St. Lawrence Parish in Lawrenceburg and St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Aurora. “You could sense his commitment to his prayer life and the sacramental life of the Church. He brought all ages into that. He was very convicted on the importance of the sacrament of reconciliation.”
She also saw his dedication to leading the Batesville Deanery faith community’s youths closer to Christ and the Church by taking them to the annual national March for Life in Washington, D.C., and the National Catholic Youth Conferences held in Indianapolis.
His commitment to the parish’s youths also took him and them together halfway around the world after one teen suggested a mission trip to Africa in a brainstorming conversation during a youth group meeting.
Without hesitation, Father Kovatch gave the green light to the idea. Sprague tried to warn the pastor about that later.
“After the meeting, I was like, ‘You know, you just can’t say OK. They’ll remember this,’ ” she recalled.
The teens may have remembered his words, but so did Father Kovatch. He also remembered that a friend from his time in seminary was from Uganda.
They hadn’t been in contact much since both were ordained priests, but the suggestion of service in Africa soon got them reconnected and ultimately led to Father Kovatch leading 17 mission trips to Uganda.
“He truly jumped all in,” said Sprague, who took part in the first mission trip. “There was not a reservation. You have to trust that there’s the prompting of the Holy Spirit. He allowed himself to be moved in those directions.”
The ministry she saw Father Kovatch do in Uganda was consistent with what she had witnessed in Bright.
“There was instantly a deep love that you could see from him for the people,” Sprague said. “His love just poured out. Just because he said yes.”
For his part, Father Kovatch put the focus on the love he’s experienced from the people of Uganda.
“The love they have is immense,” he said. “We don’t do [ministry] to get the feeling back. But, when we get that back from the people, then I think it’s God saying, ‘Hey, keep doing that.’”
‘I want to be like Father Tom’
Noah Jager was a fifth-grader at
St. Charles Borromeo School when Father Kovatch became his pastor in 2011. Now a recent graduate of the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., and a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army doing graduate studies in London, Jager’s connection to his pastor stays strong far from his Bloomington home.
“No matter if I am having the best of times or the worst of times,” Jager said, “Father Tom has been someone that I always wanted to call.”
Jager’s bond with his pastor came through Father Kovatch’s words and witness.
“He teaches about Jesus in a way that is joyful,” Jager said. “He shows what Christ can do for you. That’s a way that God works through Father Tom, bringing joy through teaching the faith. The values he gave are something that I want to live up to. I want to be like Father Tom in a lot of ways.”
Jager said that his desire to give of himself in service in the Army was inspired by his pastor’s self-giving, first as a Marine and then as a priest.
While such high ideals were appealing to a young man like Jager, he soon learned at West Point that it involves a lot of sacrifice and hardship in balancing difficult classes and the demands of Army training.
“In those times of struggle, I would call Father Tom,” Jager recalled. “He would say to ask God for strength and that sometimes God would put me in difficult situations so I can come out stronger on the other side. With that strength, I can help people in the future.”
Creating ‘a culture … that values the priesthood and religious life’
Father Kovatch has helped lead another young man from St. Charles to give of himself.
Seminarian Casey Deal, a member of St. Charles, sees power in the priestly life and ministry of his pastor.
“Father Tom loves being a priest, which can be contagious to other young men,” said Deal, who is currently serving in a pastoral internship at St. Malachy Parish in Brownsburg. “Father Tom has created a culture at St. Charles that values the priesthood and religious life, which makes the possibility of a priestly vocation a viable option for young men.”
That culture has helped Deal in his own discernment and priestly formation during the past three years.
“I am grateful for Father Tom’s support as I discern a vocation to the priesthood,” Deal said. “He is always willing to get together to talk about the priesthood and seminary. His spiritual support is a tremendous blessing as well. Every Mass he celebrates, he prays by name for the seminarians and those in religious formation who he has a connection with.”
‘The joy is immense’
While there are people from Bright to Bloomington to Uganda who have been blessed by Father Kovatch’s Christ-like ministry, he is quick to acknowledge how much God has given to him in his vocation—and how much he might be offering to other possible future priests.
“As a priest, we’re invited into places where people can’t normally go,” he said about bringing God’s mercy to people in confession. “Even though there’s trauma and the hard stuff about it, all of these people have invited me even deeper into their lives. Through their hurt, I think they take on what the priest kind of exudes, that this isn’t our home. We’re on a journey toward our true home.”
Being St. Charles’ pastor for 13 years has also opened Father Kovatch to the love of its parishioners in ways that continue to grow.
“They’ve invited me into their families,” he said. “Whenever I hear someone say that priesthood is lonely, it’s only because you allow it to be that way. I could be with somebody every night of the week if I wanted to. The people are thirsting for time with a priest.”
For men considering that God might be calling them to the priesthood, Father Kovatch encourages them to be open to the invitation.
“Don’t be afraid of it,” he said. “God will give us joy and happiness when we do what he’s calling us to do. The joy that comes from being a priest is so deep and profound that, unless you are a priest, you don’t know what it feels like. The joy is immense.”
(For more information about a vocation to the priesthood in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, visit HearGodsCall.com.) †
