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Happening ... in the Local Church
 More
than 200 parishioners of St. Patrick, Oxford, and St. Charles Borromeo,
Otterbein, gathered at Benton County High School for a Mass on July 11
to mark the 150th anniversary of the first Mass celebrated in Benton
County. (Photo by Kevin Cullen) |
By Kevin Cullen
The
Catholic Moment
OXFORD — Try to imagine Benton County 150 years ago.
Towns and cornfields are sprouting, but much of the prairie has never been broken. In some places, the grass is so tall that a rider must stand in his stirrups to see over it.
Prairie flowers — Indian paint brush, pussy toes plantain, blazing star and dozens more — spangle the rippling sea of bluestem.
Catholicism takes root, too. In 1860, Benton County’s first Mass is celebrated in the Disciples of Christ Church, Oxford, by Father Joseph A. Stephan, of Lafayette.
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen,” Father Stephan begins. “Introbo ad altare Dei …”
The second Mass is held in the county courthouse; the third in Oxford’s public school.
Fast forward 150 years. On July 11, more than 200 parishioners from St. Patrick Church, Oxford, and St. Charles Borromeo Church, Otterbein, gathered in the auditorium of another public school — Benton Central High — to mark the sesquicentennial of that first Mass. A lunch followed.
“This is a great time to celebrate as a greater community,” said Father Bob Klemme, a Benton County native and pastor of the Oxford and Otterbein parishes.
St. Patrick Church, established in 1860, was the first parish in Benton County. On Aug. 16, 1863, the cornerstone for the present church was laid by Father Edmund B. Kilroy, of Lafayette. There was no railroad to Oxford then, so much of the building material had to be hauled 25 miles by wagon from Lafayette. St. Patrick’s is one of the oldest churches in the 24-county diocese.
Father
Klemme said he feels a special connection to Father Kilroy. He was a Union
Army chaplain who served St. Patrick, then a mission church, from 1863 until
1867.
Father Kilroy was once pastor of Sts. Mary and Martha Church, the first Catholic church in Lafayette. In 1859, he began construction of its successor, St. Mary Church. When the Lafayette diocese was established in 1944, St. Mary Church became the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception.
Father Klemme was pastor of the cathedral from 2000 until 2008.
Father Klemme’s home parish was the former St. Bridget Church, Barrydale, which also was in Benton County. It was lost to fire in 1991.
The first Mass at St. Bridget was celebrated by Father Meinrad McCarthy, OSB, who was pastor of St. Patrick Church in Oxford from 1875 to 1877.
“He said the first Mass on Christmas Day at St. Bridget, then rode his pony to Fowler for a second Mass, then he rode to Oxford for the third Mass, all on the same Christmas Day,” Father Klemme said.
In 1901, Father Charles McCabe, first resident pastor at St. Bridget, laid the cornerstone for St. Charles Borromeo Church, Otterbein.
“It is evident that all three parishes — St. Patrick in Oxford, St. Bridget in Barrydale and St. Charles in Otterbein — always had a bonding to-gether,” Father Klemme said. “… I feel very blessed to have all those experiences and connections.”
The founders of St. Patrick Parish are long dead, but several present-day parishioners have been members of the parish for more than half of its 150-year history.
Don
Blankman, 85, has been going to St. Patrick Church all his life.
“It looks the same on the outside as it always did, but the inside has been changed immensely,” he said. “It used to have the high altar, and the Communion rail, and the ceiling was decorated with symbols and angels.”
He remembered attending religious education classes in the church rectory. The annual “Blessing of the Cars” attracted farmers and their Fords.
“They used to have card parties in a hall uptown, with square dances after,” said Blankman, a farmer.
Tommy Nichols, a retired farmer, has belonged to St. Patrick Parish since he married his wife, Mary Harrington Nichols, 60 years ago. He remembered parish priests blessing homes and farms, and annual parish picnics.
Mrs. Nichols said that her grandparents attended St. Patrick Church. Her mother and father were married there in 1925.
“The outside of the church is the same, except for the shrubbery and landscaping,” she said.
The Lafayette diocese was once part of the Diocese of Fort Wayne. The first bishop of the new Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana was Bishop John G. Bennett, a native of Benton County, who served from 1944 until his death in 1957. He grew up near Dunnington, but his sister, Loretta Barnard, was a parishioner at St. Patrick in Oxford.
“I remember him,” Mrs. Nichols said. “He was a nice, friendly, happy priest.”