Lutherans Seek Full Communion with Catholic Church

The photograph and following excerpt is regarding Christian Unity and can be read on Catholic Online.

Are Lutherans Next? Lutherans Seek Full Communion with Catholic Church - International - Catholic Online:

By Deacon Keith Fournier 

The desire to recover the unity of all Christians is a gift of Christ and a call of the Holy Spirit.

Pope Benedict XVI's first Papal message: 'With full awareness, therefore, at the beginning of his ministry in the Church of Rome which Peter bathed in his blood, Peter's current Successor takes on as his primary task the duty to work tirelessly to rebuild the full and visible unity of all Christ's followers. This is his ambition, his impelling duty.'

CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) -  On Tuesday, Peter Kemmether,  a married 62 year old father of four children was ordained to the Holy Priesthood by Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller.  Fr. Peter was granted a dispensation from the canonical discipline of celibacy attached to priestly ordination. He had been a Protestant Pastor who came into the full communion of the Catholic Church as the fruit of a sincere search for the fullness of the Christian faith. On June 6, 2010, I read a story in the Philadelphia Enquirer entitled "The Priest and his Mrs."  concerning now Fr. Philip Johnson, a Lutheran Pastor for 19 years, who followed a similar path. He was ordained for the Diocese of Camden with the same exception, under the sponsorship and invitation of Bishop Joseph Galante.  

Catholics are becoming aware of the former Anglican and Episcopal ministers who have followed the same journey home. Fewer Catholics are aware of the marvelous welcome the Church has extended to many more through the historic apostolic constitution approved by Pope Benedict XI. I have written extensively about this and recently shared my joy with our readers at the ordination of lifelong friend and pro-life hero Fr. Paul Schenck, whose ordination I had the privilege of attending last month. You can read my account here.  

I am in a dialogue with Archbishop Irl A. Gladfelter, CSP, the Metropolitan Archbishop of the  Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church, a group of Lutherans who have embraced the Catholic Catechism and the teaching of the Magisterium. They are humbly knocking at the door of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith seeking a way into full communion. You can read about this amazing group here. I am working on a fuller story of their journey. Some have said that their smallness and placement on "the fringes" of the Lutheran community makes them less representative. I recall that those were the same comments made about the "Traditional Anglican Communion" in their early efforts. They became the prophetic vehicle the Holy Spirit used to open up an historic breakthrough.

To read the complete story, please visit the following link: Lutherans Seek Full Communion with Catholic Church

Heart Relic of St. John Vianney to Visit Diocese of Oakland

St. John Vianney Stained Glass Window - Photo by Loci B. Lenar

The Catholic Voice - An Online publication of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland

The following excerpt is from The Catholic Voice:

The heart of St. John Vianney, among the most renowned relics of the Catholic Church, will visit the Diocese of Oakland, CA, July 16 – 18, as part of a global tour during the Year for Priests which was proclaimed last summer by Pope Benedict XVI to mark the 150th anniversary of the acclaimed saint known as the patron of parish priests.

The relic will arrive from the Diocese of Stockton on July 16 for the first of three stops in the diocese. St. John Vianney Church, 1650 Ygnacio Valley Road in Walnut Creek, will host the relic with Vespers at 7 p.m., a talk on the life of St. John Vianney at 8 p.m., followed by veneration until midnight. At 8:30 a.m. the following morning (July 17) Mass will be celebrated in the presence of the relic.

Then the relic will be transferred to Holy Spirit Church, 37588 Fremont Blvd. in Fremont, where prayers will be offered at noon, confessions at 3:30 p.m., Mass in the presence of the heart at 5 p.m. and a talk about the relic at 6:30 p.m. with veneration until midnight.

The relic’s third stop will be at the Cathedral of Christ the Light, 2121 Harrison St. in Oakland, on July 18. Mass will be celebrated in the presence of the relic at 8 a.m., 10 a.m., noon and 2 p.m. Bishop Emeritus John Cummins will be the principal celebrant at the 10 a.m. liturgy. A talk on the priesthood is scheduled at 7 p.m., followed by veneration until midnight. The relic will depart for France, the homeland of the saint, on July 19.

Jean-Marie Vianney was born near Lyons, France, in 1786, the son of a farmer.

He died on Aug. 4, 1859, at the age of 73 and was canonized in 1925. Pope Pius X proposed St. John Vianney as a model for parish priests in 1929.

When his body was exhumed in 1904 as part of the process of canonization it was found to be incorrupt, meaning that his remains did not show signs of typical decay despite not being artificially preserved.

His body rests above the altar at the basilica in Ars. His heart is enclosed in a gold reliquary that is normally kept in a separate building called the Shrine of the Cure’s Heart.