"A gracious Church is one that avoids distinctions conferring special status, prestige, or authority.  Bishops, priests and pastors are not called to greater power, but to more intentional and specific service.  They are not immune to error or bestowed with special gifts.  Whatever authority they have is in response to what others experience in them."

--Philip Gulley and James Mulholland, If God Is Love

Welcome!

 

Thank you and welcome to Holy Redeemer Catholic Community, Fort Wayne's first progressive and independent Catholic parish. We are members of the Reformed Catholic Communion, a federation of independent parishes in the United States and in Europe.  Our vocation is to reach out in a special way to those who feel alienated from the institutional churches in which they were raised. Taking Jesus as our model, we accept all people exactly where they are on the path of life without insisting that they become like us or think like us. Love knows no boundaries nor admits of any divisions among the People of God.

True to our Catholic heritage, we celebrate 7 sacraments, which we offer to everyone, regardless of denomination or faith. We welcome those who believe, and those who doubt, those who have hope for the future, and those who have lost hope. Unlike other Catholic parishes, we invite everyone to partake of Eucharist. Sacramental marriage is open to all loving couples, and family planning, divorce and remarriage are matters of individual conscience.  We do not presume to interfere in an individual person's discernment of God's will for his or her life.

At the present time, we share space with Grace St. John's United Church of Christ, a congregation that has been very welcoming to us.  In order for us to fully engage in our ministry, howeve, our goal is to have our own building sometime in the next few years.  If you feel called to support this goal of having a Catholic parish that is truly "catholic" (i.e., universal in its welcoming all the children of God) yet independent in its theology and thinking, I invite you to make a donation to the building fund.  Your generosity is a reflection of our Gracious God, whose abundance and grace surround us always. 

May the blessings of the One God continue to guide you on your journey and may you continue to discover and manifest the person who was called from all eternity into this time and place. If I can be of any assistance to you, please contact us.


~Fr. Michel