It has always seemed a bit ironic that many of the mileposts in Indiana Catholic History always seem to happen at nearly the same time. This is true again with this past and coming week being a time for Bishops…
January 10th was the 23rd anniversary of the death of Archbishop Edward T. O’Meara. 
Born in Saint Louis and ordained by our own Archbishop Ritter, O’Meara served the Archdiocese of Indianapolis for about 13 years as Archbishop.
Here is the New York Times obituary which ran on January 11, 1992:
INDIANAPOLIS, Jan. 11 – Archbishop Edward T. O’Meara, who headed Catholic relief efforts for war and disaster victims around the world, died Friday at his home here. He was 70 years old.
Archbishop O’Meara, the spiritual leader of the 200,000 Roman Catholics in the Indianapolis Archdiocese, was found last summer to be suffering from pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease.
The illness led him to resign in September as president and chairman of Catholic Relief Services, an agency in Baltimore that was created to help refugees during World War II and was expanded to a worldwide relief organization. Last year it distributed $230 million in aid to 74 countries.
He was elected to the first board of directors of Catholic Relief Services in the 1970″²s and became the agency’s president in 1987. Son of Irish Immigrants
Archbishop O’Meara, who headed a 39-county archdiocese that covers most of the southern half of Indiana, traditionally delivered the invocation before the Indianapolis 500 automobile race.
The son of Irish immigrants, he was born in St. Louis on Aug. 3, 1921, and was ordained there in 1946. He attended Kendrick Seminary in St. Louis and in 1952 earned a doctorate in theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
He was named auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of St. Louis in 1972 and was installed as the fourth Archbishop of Indianapolis in 1980. He died 12 years to the day after his installation.
In an interview shortly after his installment, Archbishop O’Meara said his affinity for the Catholic Church was rooted in his childhood.”I can never remember a time when I wasn’t drawn to it,” he said.”I liked to be around the priests. I liked what they did. I admired their wholesome life.”
Archbishop O’Meara left no immediate survivors.
It was just four short years ago, January 14, 2011 that Bishop Christopher Coyne was named as Auxiliary Bishop of Indianapolis. It was historic in that we have not had an Auxiliary since 1933 when Joseph Elmer Ritter was named Auxiliary. Bishop (later Archbishop and Cardinal) Ritter had been named to assist Bishop Joseph Chartrand. Bishop Coyne was appointed to assist former Archbishop Buechlein.
On December 22nd (2014), Pope Francis named Bishop Coyne as Bishop of Burlington, Vermont. His installation as bishop will take place on January 29th.
Also on January 14th, in 1849, the Right Rev. Jacques M. Maurice Landes d’Aussac de Saint-Palais, known to everyone simply as Bishop Saint-Palais, was consecrated as Bishop of Vincennes in the Cathedral of Saint Francis Xavier in Vincennes.
Born at LaSalvetat, France, on November 15, 1811. St. Palais was ordained a priest at Paris, May 28, 1836. He was Administrator of the diocese after the death of Bishop Bazin and named Bishop of Vincennes, October 3, 1848. He was consecrated by Bishop Pius Miles, OP, of Nashville, assisted by Coadjutor Bishop Martin John Spalding of Louisville and Very Reverend Hippolyte Du Pontavice, vicar general of Vincennes. Died at St. Mary-of-the-Woods, June 28, 1877. His body is interred in the Old Cathedral, Vincennes.
