By Catholic News Service
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (CNS) – Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre, the newly appointed archbishop of the Archdiocese of Louisville, celebrated a Mass at Holy Family Church Feb. 8, saying to the congregation that his prayer for the archdiocese – his new home – is that “we will grow in our love for God and grow in our love for each other. To do so is a response to God who is laboring in every moment to love us first,” said Archbishop Fabre.

During the liturgy, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz – who has led the archdiocese since 2007 – welcomed Archbishop Fabre, calling the news of his appointment “joyous.”

Archbishop Kurtz said he has known Archbishop Fabre for many years. “He’s a good friend of mine and he will be a good friend of yours,” said Archbishop Kurtz.

During the homily, Archbishop Fabre shared that between leaving his Louisiana home and coming to Louisville, his heart is divided.

“It delights me to be here today to greet this new home that is mine. It’s my honor and privilege to serve you, the good people of the Archdiocese of Louisville,” he said.

“I welcome this opportunity to meet you and yet my heart is divided for my family in Thibodaux who is learning today of the news that I am not with them. So my heart is divided today and I acknowledge that.”

Archbishop Fabre is not only leaving the members of the clergy, religious and faithful in the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, which he has led since 2013, he’s also leaving his siblings, he said.

Following the Mass, Archbishop Fabre held a news conference at the Archdiocese of Louisville Pastoral Center, where he spoke to members of the media and answered questions.
He will be installed as the fifth archbishop of Louisville March 30 at the Kentucky International Convention Center in downtown Louisville.

By Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) – Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, and appointed as his successor Bishop Shelton J. Fabre of Houma-Thibodaux in southeastern Louisiana.

Archbishop Fabre, 58, is one of 12 of the U.S. Catholic Church’s African American prelates and he will be the first Black archbishop of Louisville. The newly named archbishop has headed the Louisiana diocese since 2013. He previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans from 2006 to 2013. He is chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism.

Archbishop Kurtz turned 75 Aug. 18, 2021, and as required by canon law, he turned in his resignation to the pope when he reached 75. He has headed the Louisville Archdiocese since August 2007.

The changes were announced Feb. 8 in Washington by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio.
Archbishop Fabre’s episcopal motto is “Comfort My People,” which he chose when he was ordained a bishop in 2007 as an auxiliary of New Orleans. He helped with rebuilding efforts that followed the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Eight years later, he was appointed the bishop of Houma-Thibodaux. In August 2021, his diocese and other parts of southern Louisiana suffered devastation wrought by Hurricane Ida.

Regarding his motto, he said in a Feb. 8 statement that the words “are dear to my heart because they capture what I have always desired to do as a bishop, as a pastor of souls. I sincerely believe our Lord is communicating these words to his people right now.”

Shelton Joseph Fabre was born Oct. 25, 1963, in New Roads, Louisiana, the fifth of six children. He graduated in 1981 as valedictorian of Catholic High School of Pointe Coupée, Louisiana. He entered St. Joseph Seminary College in St. Benedict, Louisiana, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1985.

He continued his studies in Belgium at the American College in Louvain, a seminary that was affiliated with the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. He earned a bachelor of religious studies degree in 1987 and a master of religious studies degree in 1989 from the Catholic university.

He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Aug. 5, 1989, and went on to serve as a pastor and associate pastor. He also served as a chaplain at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, defender of the bond for the diocese’s marriage tribunal and dean of the diocese’s Northwest Deanery.

He also served on the diocesan priests’ council, college of consultors, school board and clergy personnel board. He was chairman of pastoral planning and director of the Office of Black Catholics.

As chairman of the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism, Archbishop Fabre led the writing of “Open Wide Our Hearts – The Enduring Call to Love,” approved by the body of bishops in 2018.

In March 2021, Archbishop Fabre discussed the pastoral with about 150 people in the Archdiocese of Louisville when he led an Archdiocesan Leadership Institute on the subject.

During the event, conducted online due to the pandemic, he centered his talk on “witnessing to the dignity of the human person as an antidote to the grave sin of racism.”

The following month, he and Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development in a joint statement urging Catholics to “join in the hard work of peacefully rebuilding what hatred and frustration has torn down.”

“This is the true call of a disciple and the real work of restorative justice,” Bishop Fabre and Archbishop Coakley said. “Let us not lose the opportunity to pray that the Holy Spirit falls like a flood on our land again, as at Pentecost, providing us with spiritual, emotional and physical healing, as well as new ways to teach, preach, and model the Gospel message in how we treat each other.”

The two chairmen’s statement followed the jury’s April 20, 2021, verdict finding former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty in the death of George Floyd.

Archbishop Fabre is a former chairman of the USCCB’s Subcommittee on African-American Affairs and currently serves on the board of Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development agency.

As the archbishop of Louisville, he will shepherd about 156,000 Catholics in 24 counties of central Kentucky, from the Ohio River to the Tennessee border. The archdiocese, which dates to 1808, has 110 parishes that cover 8,124 miles. About 20,000 students are served by 48 schools from kindergarten to high school.

(Contributing to this story was Marnie McAllister, editor of The Record, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Louisville.)

By Carol Zimmermann
WASHINGTON (CNS) – Lent, the spiritual season of prayer and sacrifice, has an extra pull to it this year because once again – and now for the third time – it will be under the cloud of the coronavirus pandemic.

And even though the third Lent in a pandemic can feel like a lot like a Jesus’ third fall on the road to Calvary, people who spoke with Catholic News Service focused more on the season’s path to Easter and how this year’s Lent also coincides with an optimism around COVID-19 cases dropping in the U.S.

“It’s a perfect storm: lower (coronavirus) numbers just as Lent approaches,” said Mary DeTurris Poust, former communications director for the Diocese of Albany, New York.

Poust, who teaches yoga, leads retreats and writes a blog called “Not Strictly Spiritual,” said that during recent virtual retreats she has led, it’s obvious how much people want to reconnect in person.

And maybe this Lent, which starts on Ash Wednesday, March 2, is the time to do just that, she said about being with the parish community: gathering for Mass, prayer services and also for the returning soup suppers and fish fries.

After the tremendous losses of the past two years, she said, this Lent could be a good time for a reset. “Lent is the perfect opportunity to recalculate the internal GPS” of where we’re going, Poust said, speaking about individuals but also more broadly about what parishes can do as they look to welcome people back.

So many Catholics like the ritual of Lent and all of its “bells and smells,” she said, which makes this season a great opportunity “to pull them back in the best way.”

Jen Sawyer, editor-in-chief of Busted Halo, a Paulist website and satellite radio program, said in times of uncertainty, people “rely on muscle memory” of traditional faith practices they are used to. But this year, she thinks Lent’s usual traditions might have a different feel.

“It seems like this is the Lent we’re most prepared for; we’ve all sacrificed so much” she said. The desert experience of Lent has already been lived out and with so many people exhausted from the past two years, she said this Lent offers new opportunities to find peace, community and faith.

Paulist Father Larry Rice, campus chaplain for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, agreed, saying the church is more than ready for Lent 2022 and he hopes it will help people “respond to all the trauma we have been through.”

“We are living with long-term, low-grade trauma,” he said, adding that for many, the pain is just under the surface and he sees Lent as the antidote. “As Christian people, we believe our destination is not Good Friday. We go through that to get to Easter,” he said.

He also said this year has the added hope that “by the time we get to Easter, the pandemic we’re experiencing will look different.” And with wisdom acquired in the past two years, he also added: “There are no guarantees; there could be new (coronavirus) variants.”

The past two Lents did not have that same thread of hope.

Lent 2020 started off without a hitch with just a small number of COVID-19 cases in the country but by the second week of Lent, in early March, some dioceses urged parishes to curtail handshaking at the sign of peace and Communion from the chalice. By the third week of Lent, many dioceses lifted Sunday Mass obligations and stopped public Masses and Lenten services such as Stations of the Cross, prayer services and fish fries.

Last year during Lent, more churches were open – although many were limiting congregation sizes and requiring parishioners to sign up for Masses. Fish fries were back, as carry-out events, and in many dioceses, ashes were sprinkled over heads on Ash Wednesday.

This year, parishes are open – with differing mask regulations and social distancing in place – and the beloved fish fries are back with both in-person or carry-out options.

“These past two years for all of us have not been easy, but God has been with us,” said Mercy Sister Carolyn McWatters, a liturgist and chair of the Prayer and Ritual Committee for the Sisters of Mercy.

Sister McWatters, who lives at the Sacred Heart Convent in Belmont, North Carolina, and is involved in ministry there with the order’s retired sisters, emphasized the need to reflect on the pandemic experience this Lent. She said it’s important to recognize how we lived beyond what we could control, the inner resources we relied on and where we saw goodness and grace at work.

“The cross is never a dead end. It points to new life. Where are the signs of life for me, my community, the country, the world?” she asked.

Spiritual growth is often about relinquishing control, she said, which was certainly an aspect to pandemic life but the coronavirus also involved the hardship of isolation which was especially experienced by the retired sisters.

The convent, part of a national center for the Mercy sisters, had been a frequent spot for meetings and gatherings and many came for Sunday Masses and dinners, which was all put on hold for the past two years.

“Everybody is looking for the end,” she said.

The view of these retired Mercy sisters echoes what many are feeling, but Sister McWatters also cautions against people focusing on being victims right now and seeing the pandemic purely as “woe is me.”

Similarly, she said, Lent is not gloom and doom but should be a “joyful embrace of what will help me to grow more deeply.”

Sawyer also stressed that faith is meant to be joyful and said that Busted Halo with its “Fast Pray Give Lent Calendar” and InstaLent photo challenge aims to get that across and will continue that this Lent particularly by urging people to try something new – a new book or prayer – and to check in with others after so much pandemic isolation.

“We don’t often think of Lent as a vibrant time of community connection,” she said, adding that Catholics are “used to the desert” experience often associated with the season. But this Lent, that might change.