For more than fifty years, youth ministry efforts in the New Albany Deanery have been a collaborative effort of the Catholic Churches in Clark, Floyd, and Harrison counties in Indiana. Beginning with its inception as a branch of the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) in 1965, these efforts have continued to offer generations of young people opportunities to know, love, and serve the Lord.
In the mid-1970s, the effort of the organization changed its goals and functions to be more in line with the 1976 United States bishops’ document, A Vision of Youth Ministry. Additionally, local parishes began hiring lay youth ministers. As such positions were filled and more collaboration took place, the need to develop an overall deanery office of youth ministry emerged.
Over the last five decades, the organization, now known as Catalyst Catholic, has expanded to offer support services and ministry programs that complement thriving parish ministry. By collaboration and sharing of resources, each parish can be more successful at the mission of our organization, to BRING THE YOUNG CHURCH TO CHRIST, ONE SOUL AT A TIME.
Take a look at upcoming athletic ministry, middle school ministry, high school ministry, and ministry to young adults and families in the New Albany Deanery: