City’s oldest Catholic cemetery exchanges roads for burial spaces

The Kelly Street lawn crypt is new at Holy Cross St. Joseph Cemetery in Indianapolis. (Submitted photo)

Criterion staff report

The Archdiocese of Indianapolis recently announced that ground burial spaces are available once again at historic Holy Cross St. Joseph Cemetery in Indianapolis.

After nearly 25 years of being at full ground capacity, the city’s oldest Catholic cemetery has reclaimed roads within the cemetery to add more burial spaces.

“Families with historic ties to the cemetery now have an option to use the cemetery again,” said Msgr. Joseph Schaedel, a longtime advocate for the cemeteries belonging to the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. “It’s a rebirth, an opportunity to re-establish a tradition that dates back to the cemetery’s founding in 1862.”

The new burial section is called St. John the Evangelist in honor of the burial section it borders.

This new area features a “family companion ground burial” system which adds 260 new burial spaces. Each purchaser will be required to buy two spaces. This section was created by reclaiming a cemetery road which intersects with Kelly Street on the northern side of the cemetery.

A new community mausoleum is also being planned at the head of the new burial section at the Kelly Street gate. This building will provide an additional 60 above-ground crypt spaces. Final details of this building’s design are still being developed.

“There are some unique features to this new in-ground burial system,” said Tim Elson, executive director for Catholic Cemeteries for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. “It is the driest form of ground burial because a drainage system is built in. So the water that typically destroys a vault over time will be removed.

“Being able to expand ground burial without acquiring more land is another positive,” Elson said. “We will have less road maintenance in the future plus more burial space. That’s a win-win for the environment.”

St. John Cemetery was established four years after St. John Academy was built in downtown Indianapolis in 1858. Father Auguste Bessonies purchased 18 acres of land two miles south of the city for it. The historic cemetery was first known as the “Irish Graveyard.”

“If this program is successful—and we have every reason to believe it will be—there are more roads we can look to reclaim,” Elson said.

(For more information on Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, call Elson at 317-784-4439.) †