Three new Echo apprentices begin ministry in archdiocese

By Sean Gallagher

The relationship of the University of Notre Dame’s Echo program with the Archdiocese of Indianapolis continued to grow this fall as three new apprentice catechetical leaders began their ministry in three Indianapolis South Deanery parishes.

John Paul Lichon is serving at Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ Parish. Joshua Schaffner is an apprentice at St. Mark the Evangelist Parish. Joshua Swaim is ministering at St. Jude Parish.

Lichon is a 2006 Notre Dame graduate from Naperville, Ill., who majored in Asian Studies and Chinese.

Although his undergraduate studies were not directed toward theology, he was significantly involved in ministry in a number of youth and campus ministry programs.

“When it was my senior year, I realized that I really enjoyed this kind of thing,” Lichon said. “It had always been something on the side. But it was always something I had enjoyed, and I realized that this is something that I should make a bigger priority in my life and try to make a job out of it.”

Schaffner is a 2006 graduate of Baylor University in Waco, Texas. A native of Dallas, he was also involved in campus ministry as an undergraduate student.

He said he is glad to be serving in a diocese that is familiar with Echo and where graduates of the program are now serving as full-time catechetical ministry professionals.

“It makes me proud to be a part of this program,” Schaffner said, “[and] to go and be a part of various meetings and ministries around the archdiocese, and [learn that] people already know about the Echo program and the graduates of it that are already making an impact in dioceses, not only here, but [also] around the nation.”

A native of Fort Wayne, Ind., Swaim graduated from Notre Dame last spring, where he majored in theology and philosophy.

Four of the five people in the archdiocese who are either Echo graduates or currently apprentices are men.

Swaim sees this and the presence of other young men in the program in other places around the country as a good thing for the Church in the United States that, over the past few decades, has seen the number of lay women ministers far outnumber their male counterparts.

“There’s been a good group of young men that are in the Echo program,” Swaim said, “and so that’s also making for a more diverse community of leaders in the Church.

“And I think the young leadership, as well as the leadership by young men especially, are going to invite the youth to be more active, but also to bring people our own age back into the Church.” †