The Diocese of Columbus made significant progress in 2025 in many areas related to Bishop Earl Fernandes’ four pastoral priorities of vocations, evangelization, education and social outreach.
The start of the new year will bring a major evangelization effort to Columbus as the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, a nationwide apostolate with branches at Ohio State University and elsewhere in the diocese, brings its annual SEEK conference to the city’s convention center from Thursday to Monday, Jan. 1-5.
The event will draw thousands of students from across the United States to encounter Christ and celebrate the Catholic faith through talks, breakout sessions, worship and opportunities for confession, Eucharistic Adoration and Mass.
Its theme, “To the Heights,” is inspired by the recently canonized St. Pier Giorgio Frasatti and his enthusiasm for mountain climbing. He urged young people to pursue holiness, service and a life fully alive in Christ.
In June, the Diocese of Columbus began a time of pastoral planning around Bishop Fernandes’ four pastoral priorities of Evangelization, Vocations, Catholic Education and Formation, and Social Outreach. The diocese partnered with Catholic Leadership Institute (CLI) to help give structure to the feedback it was hoping to solicit and began by inviting the faithful to participate in an open-ended online survey. Just under 2,000 surveys were submitted from 22 of the 23 counties that make up the diocese. About 40 individual interviews and 18 focus groups were also conducted in order for the widest possible perspectives on the bishop’s priorities for the diocese. From Nov. 26 to Jan. 6, the faithful were also invited to participate in the Disciple Maker Index (DMI), administered by CLI in order to reflect on where they are on their journey of discipleship, and to assist parish leadership to make data-driven decisions to help parishioners grow in their faith.
Ongoing pastoral planning is important to any diocese to ensure the needs of the faithful are known and addressed. There can be many end results to any diocesan pastoral plan. In this case, the result the curial offices hope to achieve is to formulate measurable goals around these four pastoral priorities.
In Bishop Fernandes’ annual address to the Catholic Men’s Luncheon Club in November, he said the diocese has 43 seminarians this year, up from 17 in 2022. He expects as many as 50 young men to be in formation for the priesthood this next year.
He attributed the growth in vocations to diocesan programs where high school and college students can talk to young priests, seminarians and religious sisters about the call to serve God in religious life.
These include Andrew dinners for young men and Marian evenings for young women; live-in weekends at the Pontifical College Josephinum; Melchizedek Project meetings that include talks about vocations; and outreach at the Columbus St. Thomas More Newman Center near Ohio State University campus.
Nine young men from the diocese were admitted in the fall to seminaries. Five of them are studying at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary & School of Theology in Cincinnati and the other four are at the Josephinum.
Bishop Fernandes ordained Fathers Kevin Girardi, Joseph Rolwing and Sam Severance as the diocese’s newest priests on May 17 at Westerville St. Paul the Apostle Church. Their first assignments sent them respectively to St. Paul, Columbus-Powell St. Peter St. Joan of Arc and Hilliard St. Brendan the Navigator churches.
Deacons from the diocese traveled to Rome for the Jubilee of Deacons in February. Deacon Bryan Inderhees was ordained to the diaconate on Feb. 23 at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. He was one of 23 men from eight nations ordained at a Mass that day, which was attended by the deacons from the diocese and concluded a Jubilee of Deacons from Feb. 21 to 23 as part of the Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year. He is serving at Columbus St. Agatha Church.
Bishop Fernandes ordained Deacon Zachary Goodchild to the diaconate for the diocese on May 3 at Worthington St. Michael the Archangel Church.
Also ordained at the time were Deacons Adrian Kyambadde and Wynand Ssenkusu of the Diocese of Lugazi, Uganda, and Godfrey Ssebikyu of the Diocese of Kiyinda-Mityana, Uganda. All four are studying at the Josephinum and anticipate being ordained to the priesthood in May 2026.
More priests are needed to serve a Catholic population in the diocese that has grown to about 505,000 individuals in recent years as people from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds have come to central and southern Ohio. Because of their presence, 17 sites offer Masses in Spanish in the diocese and Mass is celebrated regularly in more than 15 languages other than English and Spanish and in the Roman Catholic, Maronite, Melkite, Byzantine, Syro-Malabar and Eritrean Ge’ez rites of the Church.
The work of the diocese’s 94 active and 49 retired priests has been augmented greatly by the availability of missionary priests. The diocese currently has 48 priests from 15 religious orders serving at many of its 81 parishes in 23 counties. Their presence enabled the diocese to reduce the number of parish closings during the past three years from the 32 recommended through the Real Presence Real Future initiative to 16.
Heath St. Leonard Church held its final Mass on Feb. 2 and its boundaries were added to those of Newark St. Francis de Sales Church. The former church building is being repurposed by the Newark parish and Catholic Social Services to serve as an outreach center.
A decree for the merger of the congregations of Pickerington St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish and Columbus Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Church was issued in late June, with Bishop Fernandes saying the church of Our Lady would remain open but no longer serve as a weekly worship site.
A new location for St. John’s Hermitage, a place of respite for priests, deacons and seminarians, was opened in June in Mount Vernon, replacing the original hermitage in rural Scioto County that was open for about 10 years. That land was sold to help finance the new site, whose central Ohio location will make it more convenient for priests throughout the state.
The new hermitage is in a large house that was home to a family of seven. Its size will allow its use by several occupants at a time.
In October, the establishment of a disaster response plan was announced to help parishes, schools and organizations mobilize people and resources in cases of natural or man-made disaster. It includes a Spirit of Hope Disaster Relief Fund to which donations may be made at any time. The fund was started with $75,000 from the diocesan Office of Catholic Charities.
The plan is not a reaction to specific events or an effort to increase safety. Diocesan safety guidelines and protocols already were in existence before the fund was started. In announcing the fund, it was noted that 43 events within the diocese in the past 60 years have led to federal disaster declarations.
Deacon Dave Bezusko of Marysville Our Lady of Lourdes Church became diocesan director of Catholic Charities at the beginning of the year, succeeding Mark Huddy, who had held the position for 31 years. Deacon Bezusko worked for United Way organizations in Logan and Union counties for 22 years.
Other diocesan evangelization and outreach activities in 2025 included the opening in June of the expanded Catholic Social Services Our Lady of Guadalupe Center on Columbus’ west side.
The center has almost 12,000 square feet of space – three times the size of its former location – and provides services, including nutrition and food, workforce training, housing navigation, case management, support for new mothers, emergency assistance, a small business incubator, language assistance and English as a Second Language classes, and health resources. This location is the center’s fifth in 25 years since it began from the back of a van.
The bishop said in his luncheon club talk that the diocese’s 11 high schools and 39 elementary schools are at 90 percent capacity. Schools on the west side of Columbus, he pointed out, have large numbers of Latino students.
In addition, new schools are in the works, including Ave Maria Academy at St. Peter St. Joan of Arc parish. Each high school in the diocese now has a priest in service to the students and staff, and religious sisters are also working in education at several schools.
Cristo Rey Columbus High School announced plans to add a middle school to its existing school. The plan will begin with admission of 25 to 30 sixth-grade students this fall and continue with the addition of seventh and eighth grades in each of the following two academic years. Middle school and high school students will be in the same building but have separate spaces and schedules.
The Chesterton Academy of St. Benedict, a high school near St. Michael, was designated by the diocese as an independent school, allowing it to work with the diocesan Office of Catholic Schools to receive a state charter while remaining faithful to its Catholic identity.
Bishop Fernandes announced in late June that the diocese will allow students who are about 9 or 10 years old, in the fourth and fifth grades, to receive the sacrament of Confirmation, lowering the age of eligibility for the sacrament by about three years. The change will take place during a four-year period in one or two deaneries at a time and be completed by the spring of 2029.
The bishop approved the change after more than a year of consultation among diocesan officials and parish and school personnel.
“A primary reason for their support of this proposal was the unanimous concern of families not raising their children in the Catholic faith, and the need to resuscitate the Catholic identity of our children through the power of the Holy Spirit,” he said.
“Children need to be exposed to the awe and wonder of God at a much earlier age and recognize their inherent value and worth as a child of God. … The Church does not advocate or teach that once a child receives the sacrament of Confirmation, he has graduated from the Catholic Church and is no longer required to practice the Catholic faith.”
In his announcement of the change, the bishop also said a proposal to transition the order of the sacraments of initiation (baptism, Eucharist and Confirmation) for children, with a child first being baptized and then being confirmed before receiving the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist at the age of reason, “will be a continual topic of discussion and discernment over the next several years.” Such a policy is in effect in some American dioceses.
The diocesan pastoral council, an advisory panel to the bishop, was reorganized in September. It now includes 22 members representing the diocese’s geographic and multicultural diversity. Members include lay faithful, clergy and consecrated religious sisters.
The diocese introduced a digital map in September which specified boundaries for every parish for the first time. This allows people new to an area to know with certainty the identity of their territorial parish and will clarify such things as schools’ geographical boundaries and which parish is responsible for pastoral care of any future facilities such as nursing homes or hospitals.
Msgr. Mark Hammond, pastor of Mount Vernon St. Vincent de Paul and Danville St. Luke churches, was named a monsignor by the late Pope Francis in April in recognition of his long and dedicated service to the Church and its people. He joined 10 other currently active or retired priests of the diocese in receiving the honor.
Msgr. David R. Funk, 76, died on Jan. 8, a few months after celebrating the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. He served as pastor at Portsmouth Holy Redeemer, Columbus St. Agatha and Reynoldsburg St. Pius X churches.
Father Francis M. Stanton, 90, died on Oct. 29. He had been a priest for 65 years and 5 months and, with Msgr. John Dreese, was the senior priest of the Diocese of Columbus in terms of years of service.
He was commissioned in the chaplain corps of the U.S. Navy in 1967 and served in that position for 22 years at sites around the world. In the diocese, he was associate pastor at seven churches, administrator at Wheelersburg St. Peter in Chains Church and pastor at Crooksville Church of the Atonement.
Father M. Edmund Hussey, 92, died on Aug. 21. He was a priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati for 67 years who retired in 1998, moved to Columbus to be closer to family members and served for many years as senior associate pastor at Columbus St. Agatha Church.
Brother Michael F. Brinkman, 92, who served at the former Salesian Boys and Girls Club in Columbus, died on Feb. 18. He was program director at the club in 1991 and 1992 and returned there in 2001 as a staff member until the club closed in 2008.
Deacon Jack W. Elam, 86, died on April 23. He was ordained to the diaconate by Bishop Emeritus James Griffin in 1992 and served as a deacon at Newark Blessed Sacrament and St. Francis de Sales churches until retiring from active ministry in 2007.
Religious sisters who died in late 2024 and 2025 and had served in or were natives of the Diocese of Columbus, or who were living in the diocese at the time of their deaths, were: Sister Mary Claire Kirkpatrick, OP, 85, Dec. 10, 2024; Sister Marie Gressel, OSF, 93, Jan. 3; Sister June Engelbrecht, OP, 85, Jan. 25; Sister M. Alice Metzger, OSF, 94, March 7; Sister Joan Marie Harper, CDP, 87, March 10; Sister Dolores Ann Pfeiffer, OP, 95, April 10; Sister Mary Ann Connolly, OP, 92, May 28; Sister Marita Charley, OP, 96, , May 30; Sister Rose Marie Deibel, SNDdeN, 96, June 17; Sister Maura Fortkort, OSF, 93, June 21; Sister Bernardita Abeyta, OP, 70, June 21; Sister Louis Mary Passeri, OP, 92, June 22; Sister Rose Zuber, SNdeN, 96, June 27; Sister Colleen Gallagher, OP, 94, July 21; Sister Bernice Weilbacher, SNDdeN, 99, July 23; Sister Lucianna Derus, OSF, 91, Sept. 3; Sister Joan McGough, OP, 90, Oct. 10; Sister Barbara Rose Kolesar, OP. 85, Nov. 11; Sister Verone Leeman, OSF, 86, Nov. 18; Sister Jean Phillipson, OSF, 99, Dec. 4; and Sister Edith Roahrig, OP, 95, Dec. 17.