DETROIT — Two Catholics with Michigan ties are among those honored as “Catholics of the Year” for 2015 by a national Catholic publication.

Janet Smith, Ph.D., a professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, and Archbishop Bernard Hebda, former bishop of Gaylord, joined six others recognized by Our Sunday Visitor as those who “made an indelible mark on 2015” through their witness to the mercy and love of God.

Smith, who holds the Fr. Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at the Detroit seminary and is serving a third term as a consultor to the Pontifical Council on the Family, was honored for her work in organizing an international conference in August to address the Church’s ministry to those with same-sex attraction.

The “Welcoming and Accompanying Our Brothers and Sisters with Same-Sex Attraction” conference was co-sponsored by the Archdiocese of Detroit and Courage International and took place at the Inn at St. John’s in Plymouth. It featured more than 30 national and international speakers and experts on the topic of same-sex attraction, and “was a timely opportunity to both affirm the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and, at the same time, open up avenues of dialogue,” according to Our Sunday Visitor.

The publication honored Smith for organizing the conference in the aftermath of 2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, especially in light of the “seismic” shift in cultural views on the topic.



Archbishop Hebda, who served as bishop of Gaylord from 2009-13, was honored by the newsmagazine for his role as apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which has been reeling after a series of sexual abuse lawsuits and allegations of mishandling of abuse cases led to the spring resignations of Archbishop John Nienstedt and Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piché.

Archbishop Hebda, who also serves as coadjutor archbishop of Newark, N.J., was appointed by Pope Francis to oversee the Minnesota archdiocese in June, and “has approached his temporary flock with humility, deference and good humor,” said Our Sunday Visitor. His decision to implement a series of listening sessions to allow local Catholics to weigh in on the qualities they would like to see in a new archbishop was “unprecedented in an episcopal selection process,” the publication added.

Archbishop Hebda has said he hopes the listening sessions will inform the papal nuncio’s recommendations to Pope Francis for the new archbishop, and that the consultative method was formed in the spirit of the pope’s inclusive leadership.

“For his compassion and creativity in helping to heal a community in distress, OSV is happy to name Archbishop Hebda as one of its 2015 Catholics of the Year,” the publication wrote.

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See the full list

To find out who else Our Sunday Visitor named as 2015 Catholics of the Year, or to read more, visit www.osv.com.