Griffin Honeycutt was welcomed into the Catholic Church earlier this year. Submitted photo
By John Rohlf
The Message assistant editor
Through the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, the Diocese of Evansville welcomes a group of new Catholics into the Church each year. In the past year alone, the diocese welcomed 261 new Catholics into the Church.
Three of the many Catholics welcomed into the Catholic Church in the Diocese of Evansville over the past several years are Griffin Honeycutt, Sabrina Jones and Mary Whelan. They were welcomed into the church after completing the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults (or the former Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults).
A music teacher at Holy Redeemer School in Evansville, Honeycutt is the most recent of the three to be welcomed into the Catholic Church. A Holy Redeemer Parishioner, Honeycutt received Confirmation and First Communion to come into Full Communion with the Catholic Church in 2024.
When Honeycutt joined the Holy Redeemer school staff as a music teacher, he attended school Masses and was in charge of the school choir.
“I was kind of exposed to the Mass there,” Honeycutt said. “Kind of learning the steps and the process and things. And just overall, at first kind of just being a little put off by the Mass but then, as the year went on, I got to look forward to it more and more.”
Honeycutt said there were two moments that clicked for him in deciding to pursue joining the Catholic Church. He credited a faculty retreat with Diocesan Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry Jeremy Goebel, who spoke to the faculty. Honeycutt said the retreat and time of Adoration with the Lord was powerful.
He also was impacted by a moment during a kindergarten Mass at the end of the school year. During the Mass, Honeycutt was helping when the kindergarteners were reading the readings during Mass.
“I was helping out with that and there was a moment where during the Mass, I was up there kind of making sure they weren’t freaking out and stuff,” Honeycutt said. “I was on the altar there and I heard the Lord speak to me through the tabernacle saying to follow me. And from that moment on, I was like, OK, I need to explore this. I need to look into OCIA and get that started.”
A current member of St. Bernard Parish in Rockport, Sabrina Jones was welcomed into Full Communion with the Catholic Church two years earlier in 2022. She said there were “lots of points” when God tugged her back to the church. She said among these times was during the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020.
“We had some quiet space,” Jones said. “We were very active in the church we went to before. But it kind of gave us some time and separation and the Lord had already been tugging on our hearts to consider Catholicism.”
She said shortly after that time, her oldest daughter came back to St. Bernard for school. They received papers coming back home from school explaining the saints, Mary and the prayers for Mary.
“It just explained it in a way that I could understand and that was different than what I had been raised believing the way that the Catholic faith revered saints and respected Mary. I think the Lord started working on us during the time.”
St. Wendel Parishioner Mary Whelan was welcomed into the Catholic Church in 2019. She grew up Primitive Baptist and was non-denominational in college. When she lived in Nashville, she was involved in some charismatic Protestant Churches.
“When I moved back to Indiana, I was kind of leaning liturgical but I couldn’t figure out what church to go to,” Whelan said. “All of the Protestant churches that were liturgical, I was reading their doctrines of faith. I came back up here and I couldn’t get on board with any of the churches in the Protestant tradition. Catholicism wasn’t on the radar.”
Whelan started researching the Catholic Church in 2018 after the death of Dolores O’Riordan, the lead singer of the band The Cranberries, an Irish band Whelan said was popular in the 1990s. Whelan listened to the Catholic funeral Mass and while she had no idea what was happening, she was drawn in to learn more.
“By February, I had watched the funeral Mass and I had started to look things up,” Whelan said. “I started reading the Catechism on the Vatican website and did that for three months … And the more I studied the Catholic Church, reading the doctrines and the teachings in the Catechism, the more I was like I really think God’s calling me to be Catholic.”
Joining the Church through OCIA
Jones said they started inquiring and talking with the staff at St. Bernard around 2021. She began the RCIA (now OCIA) program shortly afterwards. It was about a year-long process joining the church, she said.
She said the program was different than what she expected. She said she expected the program to feature a rigid classroom setting environment.
“It was more personal,” Jones said. “We really dug into what this means, what it means for your family and this is what the church believes. And it really unraveled the love story that is the Catholic Church of Christ’s love for us and less of rules and structure and this is how it’s going to be.”
Jones said before joining the Catholic Church, she was non-denominational and her husband was Catholic. She said she “can’t really describe the feeling” when she stood on the front row with her husband behind her while she and one of her daughters received Communion for the first time. Jones said over the summer her daughter was on schedule to receive her First Communion this year.
“Even as we prepare her and are excited for her, it’s just a feeling of completion for our family and just pure joy of just entering into the Church together as a family. But also having that shared experience of the Body of Christ and knowing what that means for our kids.”
Whelan attended RCIA (now OCIA) at St. Anthony’s Parish in downtown Evansville starting in the summer of 2018 before attending the RCIA program at St. Wendel because it was closer to her home. She went through their program and was Confirmed on the Easter Vigil in 2019.
Whelan said one of the appeals to the Catholic Church for her is that the fullness of truth is contained in the Catholic Church. She also spoke of the impact of chapter six of the Gospel of John, which includes the Bread of Life Discourse.
“Going through and learning the doctrines and reading the things that different churches teach, there were things in the church I grew up in and things in the churches that I attended that looking back and looking at the doctrines, its’s like I can’t really get on board with that,” Whelan said. “Because that’s not what the Bible teaches. But everything in the Catholic Church is what the Bible teaches. And it contains the fullness.”
Honeycutt said the OCIA program was great. While he expected to learn many things through the program, he did not expect for his heart to change.
“As I went through the program and as I’ve left the program and now just in my daily life, I’ve realized that my whole life has changed,” Honeycutt said. “I look at things so much more differently. I look at things through a lens of the Catholic faith. And it’s just a much more fulfilling type of life that way.”