St Mary Catholic Church

We always go to Mass here when we visit family in Batesville. People are always friendly and welcome you with open arms.

Memorial for Terry Costello. Very nice, people are great.

Wonderful parish community.

A fine Church.

Ambiente familiar

Having recently moved to the area, we found St Mary’s was the closest Catholic Church to our new home. It’s a small church with mostly friendly parishioners. On about our third time there, we experienced some behavior that pretty much floored us, and has kept us away ever since. The first one was a joke the priest told at the end of his homily. The joke was about an atheist and a Christian sitting next to each other on a plane. The joke ended with profanity. Rather than substituting the cursory word with a more family friendly word, the priest just blurted it out. We were stunned! There were quite a few children present. How are they supposed to know not to say that word if it’s clearly spoken in church. Of course there were many that laughed. I felt like God’s house had just been mocked and I really wanted to leave, but tried to hold steady.
Then a gentleman got up to talk about a Knights of Columbus project. He began by saying ‘that’s the third time I’ve heard that joke and it’s still funny.’ My husband and I just looked at each other and said, ‘no, it wasn’t.’
Before the end of mass processional, another gentleman stood up, from his seat on the pew, and literally scolded adults that were in the cry room. He expressed how disrespectful it is for children/babies to be crying during Father’s homily. He expressed his displeasure about the noisy children. At that point I nearly cried.
I had barely noticed the sweet voices of those babies. Honestly.
As we left, I touched the faces of some of the babies in the back row and told them how sweet they were. I told the parents I did not agree with what had been said.
I would suppose that overall this is probably a good place of worship, but it’s clear that the least of these are truly not as welcome as others. Therefore I want no part of that.
We have chosen to drive much further each Sunday to a different church.

5:00 pm misa en eapañol