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Local landmark officially returned to service

Bishop Kevin Rhoades, head of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Catholic Diocese, pours sacred oil on the altar at the St. Felix Oratory during a dedication ceremony at the former friary on Saturday, March 3.
Bishop Kevin Rhoades, head of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Catholic Diocese, pours sacred oil on the altar at the St. Felix Oratory during a dedication ceremony at the former friary on Saturday, March 3. Photo by Cindy Klepper.

A Huntington landmark steeped in history was officially returned to the service of the Catholic church during a ceremony Saturday, March 3.

Bishop Kevin Rhoades, head of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Catholic diocese, officiated at the dedication ceremony for the St. Francis Oratory, a former friary that will now serve, among other purposes, as home for a community of Catholic religious women.

Several members of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist will make St. Felix their home. The group is headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI, but its rapid growth has filled that facility to capacity. In addition to moving some of its sisters to Huntington, the order also anticipates opening priories in Austin, TX, and in Loomis, CA.

The Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist was founded in 1997 with four sisters and now has more than 100 members, with an average age of 28. The sisters administer and staff small, private Catholic schools.

St. Felix last housed a religious order in 1978, when Capuchin friars - who had occupied the complex since its dedication in 1929 - decided that their dwindling numbers made it difficult to justify keeping the facility open. They sold the 83-bedroom facility to a local United Brethren congregation, which operated the Good Shepherd United Brethren Church there for about two decades. That church eventually became overburdened with the cost of operating the facility and, in 2010, sold it to the Mary Cross Tippmann Foundation of Fort Wayne. The foundation restored the facility and plans to make it available for use by the Catholic diocese and the Catholic community in the area.

An oratory is a house of prayer, but does not serve as a parish church.