Something new to local Catholics: a married priest

John Cornelius

City and Region - The Buffalo News

The photo and following excerpt is from BuffaloNews.com:

BY: Jay Tokasz

A husband and father of three daughters will become the area’s first married Roman Catholic priest when he is ordained Saturday in Allegany County.

Bishop Richard J. Malone of the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo will preside over the ordination of John Cornelius, a former Episcopal priest who is being allowed into the ranks of the Catholic priesthood under a 2012 papal exception to the church’s celibacy rule.

Cornelius, 64, converted to Catholicism about two years ago with his wife, Sharyl.

He spent 20 years as a priest in the Episcopal Church until retiring in 2010.

“I look forward to celebrating Mass again. It’s been two years, and I missed it greatly,” Cornelius said Tuesday. “That closeness to God is an amazing thing.”

A directive by Pope Benedict XVI aimed at welcoming disaffected Episcopalians and Anglicans into the church allows for Cornelius’ ordination.

Last year, the pope established a new “ordinariate” – an entity similar to a diocese – serving former Episcopalians and Anglicans who have converted to Catholicism.

More than 100 former Anglican priests, including Cornelius, applied to become priests for the ordinariate, and Cornelius will be among the first 30 applicants to be ordained.

His wife of 33 years and their three daughters – Virginia, Rebecca Maier and Sarah – will be on hand for the 5 p.m. ceremony in Immaculate Conception Church in Wellsville.

Afterward, Cornelius will lead a small community of former Anglicans who meet in a Catholic church in Henrietta, in the Catholic Diocese of Rochester.

The community, known as the Fellowship of Saint Alban, is considered fully Catholic but may use a traditional Anglican liturgy, including the Book of Divine Worship, which features prayers in Elizabethan-style English.

Cornelius will be a priest of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, which is based in Houston, and overseen by Monsignor Jeffrey N. Steenson, a former Episcopal bishop turned Catholic.

But much of Cornelius’ spiritual work will be focused in the Diocese of Buffalo – in Allegany County, where he will celebrate standard Catholic Masses and participate in other ministries at rural Catholic parishes.

Read More: A Married Priest