Daniel Sarell is new director of
Office of Family Ministries
By Mary Ann Wyand
Daniel B. Sarell, parish life coordinator of St. Mary Parish in Navilleton, is the new director of the archdiocesan Office of Family Ministries.
His appointment was announced by Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein on Jan. 31, the day he began his new ministry position.
Sarell succeeds David J. Bethuram, who has served as associate executive director of family ministries for the past 14 years and as associate executive director of Catholic Social Services ( CSS) in Indianapolis for seven years.
Bethuram will continue to serve the archdiocesan Church as associate executive director of the Secretariat for Catholic Charities and Family Ministries, working with the directors of the family ministries section of the secretariat, which includes family, deaf and multicultural ministries, while continuing his administrative position for Catholic Social Services.
Bethuram said Sarell’s “experience as the associate director of catechesis in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend and as a parish director of Christian formation [at Christ the King Parish in South Bend, Ind.] will assist him in developing, implementing and coordinating programs that promote the strengthening of Catholic families throughout the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.”
He said Sarell’s “dedication to family life and to the Catholic faith gives him a solid foundation for family ministry [and] … assisting parish leaders in strengthening their ministries for and with families.”
In his new position, Sarell will work with Marilyn Hess, associate director of healing family ministries, to provide a variety of programs and services for archdiocesan Catholics.
Sarell said he plans to build on the strengths that are already present in the archdiocese’s family ministries, reach out to the diversity of the Church in central and southern Indiana, and work to enhance unity among that diversity at parishes in the 11 deaneries.
“My desire to reach out to the different corners of the archdiocese comes in part from the fact that I’ve lived in so many of them,” Sarell said. “I’m a native of Terre Haute, spent my teenage years in Fort Wayne, Ind., went to school at Saint Meinrad and served at St. Mary Parish in Navilleton. I have an interest in all the various regions in Indiana and hope to apply that experience to reaching out to the diversity within the archdiocese.”
Sarell said he also will work to “identify [family ministry] areas in need of further development while remaining true to the mission of the office and the pastoral guidance of the archbishop.”
He also plans to “assist parishes and other archdiocesan agencies in promoting and supporting Catholic families in living out their baptismal call to holiness.
“I feel strongly that families both reflect and shape the reality of the Church,” he said. “If one seeks to serve the Church, the first place we must look is to the family.”
Sarell said “my own complicated family background, which has dealt with the issues of my parents’ divorce, diverse religious beliefs, remarriage and blended families, has led me to feel profound compassion for families, many of whom deal with difficulties that are much more painful than I could have ever imagined.
“At the same time, I recognize how necessary it is to seek avenues for strengthening and spiritually supporting the faith journeys of more traditional nuclear families,” he said. “I recognize that all families have spiritual and pastoral needs. It’s just a matter of listening carefully to what those needs are and seeing how we can be supportive in terms of addressing those needs.”
Sarell said his service at St. Mary Parish in Navilleton “was a very good formation in ministry and a rare opportunity for a lay person to be so deeply involved with the pastoral leadership of the Church.”
In parish ministry, Sarell said, “the things I enjoyed doing the most were working with couples preparing for marriage, couples preparing to have their children baptized, and families who had just had a recent loss and were planning a funeral. That was the open door to reach out to them in terms of grief support.”
Sarell joined the Catholic Church as a teenager. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history at the former Saint Meinrad College in 1997, pursued graduate theological studies at the University of Dayton in 2001 and is currently working on his thesis.
He served as a graduate assistant in the university’s Program for Christian Leadership in Dayton, Ohio, from 2001 until 2003, when he accepted the appointment as parish life coordinator of St. Mary Parish in Navilleton.
Sarell and his wife, Angela, have been married for five years. They recently moved to Indianapolis from southern Indiana. †