October 14, 2025 // Bishop

St. Thomas More Society Hosts Red Mass in South Bend

Kasia Balsbaugh

On Tuesday, October 7, Bishop Rhoades presided at the University of Notre Dame’s annual Red Mass, a special votive Mass that asks God’s guidance for those who work in politics and law.

The Red Mass, so called for the color of the vestments the presiding priests wear, has been a longstanding tradition in the Catholic Church – for the past 70 years at Notre Dame, the past 100 years in the United States, and the past 800 years in Europe.

Bishop Rhoades, clergy, and servers finish the annual Red Mass at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of the University of Notre Dame on Tuesday, October 7.

The Red Mass at Notre Dame, held at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, is organized by the St. Thomas More Society of South Bend. Christian Matozzo, who has been president of the society since 2023, graduated law school in 2022 and now works as a nonprofit lawyer.

“We want to create more fellowship, more camaraderie, with the local lawyers in the community, because there actually aren’t a lot of options,” Matozzo told Today’s Catholic. “We have about 500 lawyers here in St. Joseph County, which is a fair amount, but there’s not a lot of opportunities to just get together, see people, and enjoy each other’s company.”

Another purpose behind the St. Thomas More Society is ongoing education for Catholic lawyers and politicians.

“The goal is to try and teach lawyers the natural law, the precepts of the faith, through the Church’s longstanding teaching on the law,” Matozzo said.

Matozzo explained further by referencing a speech Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, gave at the University of Notre Dame. “Bishop Barron says that a Catholic law school teaches … the positive law, which is what the legislators write, what the lawyers argue,” Matozzo said. “Then there’s the natural law, which is what we all know in our hearts. And then you’ve got the eternal law, which is what governs God, and it all should be in harmony with each other. And he said that’s what a Catholic law school should teach.”

The first reading at the Red Mass was about the building of the Tower of Babel, while the second reading was about Pentecost. Bishop Rhoades pointed out in his homily that Pentecost was a reversal of what happened at Babel – people coming together in God-given unity rather than being driven apart in pride.

“Our mission today in such a polarized culture and divided society is to promote communion, witnessing to the reconciled diversity of Pentecost,” Bishop Rhoades said.

Bishop Rhoades also connected the readings more explicitly to the legal field and challenges for Catholic lawyers.

“Many, like those in Babel who saw God as having no relevance in their building project, see God and His divine law as having no relevance for the creation of civil law,” Bishop Rhoades said. “All our recent popes have warned us of the dangers to democratic societies of a relativistic framework that rejects objective truth or a transcendent moral order. The Church reminds us of the moral truths that need to be taken into account in the creation of laws and in their execution. The Church warns against legal positivism in which human-made laws become the ultimate authority, displacing the moral order derived from natural and divine law, the moral order grounded in truth and goodness.”

St. Joseph County Councilwoman Amy Drake was one of the attendees of the Red Mass. During her time as a congressional aide, she would attend the Red Mass in Washington, D.C. Now, she and her husband, a lawyer, both practicing Catholics, attend the Red Mass in South Bend.

“To be at Mass that is dedicated to making holy the things that we do is very important to us and my family,” Drake said. “I think it’s wonderful to see government officials, to see judges, to see lawyers there, because it instills you with the feeling that those people are going to be serving God through their work.”

While the Red Mass is the St. Thomas More Society’s biggest event, members of the society also gather for monthly Masses at St. Joseph Parish in South Bend and other events. Matozzo encouraged anyone interested in the St. Thomas More Society to check out the website of the South Bend chapter, stthomasmoresb.org.

“This is not just a small club for people in the know,” Matozzo said. “We want you to get involved. If you’re a lawyer, or if you’re an elected official, if you’re a government official, we want you to come to one of our events.”

The society’s next big event will be a talk given by Notre Dame Law School professor Richard Garnett about the recent development of religious liberty law. To learn more about the event, and to sign up, visit the St. Thomas More Society’s website.