History

In 1994, Archbishop Daniel Buechlein and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis felt the need to change direction in regards to providing ministry to the various ethnic groups of the Archdiocese. The idea was to establish some sort of multicultural commission which would serve as an umbrella over the ministerial needs of all groups. In preparation for this, focus groups were held throughout the archdiocese giving as result a committee was formed to work on structure. Out of these meetings, the Multicultural Ministry Commission came to be.

Shortly after that, the archbishop Daniel Buechlein appointed Fr. Kenneth Taylor as the Director of the Office of Multicultural Ministry for the Archdiocese. This gave the archdiocese a staff person who would be responsible for carrying out the work of the Commission.

Since this was a new endeavor for the archdiocese, the first order of business was to develop a strategic plan for the Commission and the work of Multicultural Ministry. Ms. Doris Parker was the facilitator that guided the Commission through this process.

In August 2013, Br. Moises Gutierrez was named the Director of this office. Soon after, the name of the office was changed to Intercultural Ministry Office. A new Commission was created: The Intercultural Ministry Commission formed by three Advisory Committees; Black Catholics, Hispanics, French speaking and Asian Pacific Islanders (Vietnam, Burma, Philippine, and Korea). In October of the same year, the first meeting of this Commission was held and facilitated by Sr. Catherin Schneider, OSF. As a result of this, we developed the process to create a new integrated intercultural ministry pastoral plan.

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