May 3, 2026
Dear Friends,
As you learned last week Saint Joseph Parish in Dyer, Indiana, will cease to exist at some point soon and the folks from Saint Joe will make their way to 500 Northgate Drive to help create a new parish.
What you need to take note of is that Saint Maria Goretti Parish in Dyer, Indiana, will, likewise, cease to exist at that same time.
Catholic parishes theoretically if not really, are intended to be communities of faith, not physical plants, buildings, or addresses on a map.
In order that Father Leo can have the freedom I would want to exercise his ministry as pastor of the new evolving parish free of my influence and my history with Saint Maria Goretti Parish, I have decided that these will be the last Words for the Wind published in the weekly bulletin of Saint Maria Goretti Parish.
My Words for the Wind very, very untypically, continued to appear in the SMG weekly bulletin after my retirement through the exceptional and loving good graces of Father Leo.
Father Leo extended to me every courtesy, kindness, and accommodation after I retired and we created a most untypical ministerial and personal relationship over these years since my retirement, and I am confident that those relationships will continue to mature.
I appreciate all of the comments about my Words, and I very much enjoyed making people think about Catholicism, culture, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ over the years but I particularly liked irritating people because we all need a bit of irritation to keep ourselves from self-fulfilling prophecies of pathological grandiosity.
All things considered, as they are, it has been determined that the time has come for a new parish to hopefully evolve in the tradition of offering hospitality to the folks seeking the sacramental Mystery at the heart of it all in the manner of the old Dyer parishes, Saint Jospeh Parish and Saint Maria Goretti Parish.
With gratitude,
Father Niblick
PS
The Adult Faith Formation dates for the End-of-Life program that I wrote about last week will be forthcoming in a future bulletin.
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From Father Leo
Dear Friends,
As you may have already read in this week’s Words for the Wind, Father Niblick has decided that this will be his last column for our parish bulletin. I am saddened by the fact we will no longer have his wisdom and wit in the bulletin, but I very much appreciate his sensitivity to the changes that we will experience as we prepare to merge St. Maria Goretti and St. Joseph. As I wrote to you a couple of weeks ago, one of the first changes we will experience is the combining of the parish bulletins. Father Niblick said to me that this seemed like an appropriate time to find a new home for Words for the Wind.
As many of you know, I have known Father Niblick for 25 years. We first met when he was pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul in Whiting and I was assigned to Sacred Heart in Whiting for the summer, after my second year in seminary. Prior to that, I had heard so many “interesting” stories about Father Niblick that I was a bit apprehensive to meet him. When I walked into his rectory, I was surprised/impressed/flabbergasted by the piles and piles of books that were strewn all over the floor. The first thing he said to me was, “What are you reading?” I told him I was reading The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Father Niblick had taken a class on The Divine Comedy at the Gleacher Center in downtown Chicago. And so, that day, we started a conversation on books, theology, ministry, art, culture, and life that continues to this day.
I am so grateful to Father Niblick for the encouragement, support, honesty, example, and friendship he has offered me over the past 25 years and, most especially, over the past 4 years. I can honestly say that few people have influenced my life and my ministry as much as Father Niblick. I am so grateful for his thoughtfulness and magnanimity in wanting me to have the freedom I will need in navigating the formation of the new parish. I will miss reading WFW in the bulletin, and I will miss people, especially other priests, saying to me, “Did Niblick really write that in the bulletin!?!?”
Thank you, Charlie.
Leo