New Bishop!
This Thursday, our new bishop will be ordained and installed in the diocese of Allentown.
Monsignor John Barres is 48 years old and was baptized by Bishop Fulton Sheen. I have just finished reading a book his father, Oliver, wrote in the 1950's describing his journey into the Church. It is interesting because his dad wrote it in the process of conversion and not afterwards, yet some of his apologetic arguments for Mary and the Saints and the Eucharist are discussed as if he had long understood and held these beliefs!
This is so exciting because we get to see first hand the 2000 year old process of the laying on of hands to confer the apostolic gift passed on from the actual hands of the apostles themselves!
The ordination of a bishop displays the apostolic succession that is the basis for the Catholic belief that we are in continuity with the same ancient Church which Christ started.
Monsignor John Barres is 48 years old and was baptized by Bishop Fulton Sheen. I have just finished reading a book his father, Oliver, wrote in the 1950's describing his journey into the Church. It is interesting because his dad wrote it in the process of conversion and not afterwards, yet some of his apologetic arguments for Mary and the Saints and the Eucharist are discussed as if he had long understood and held these beliefs!
This is so exciting because we get to see first hand the 2000 year old process of the laying on of hands to confer the apostolic gift passed on from the actual hands of the apostles themselves!
The ordination of a bishop displays the apostolic succession that is the basis for the Catholic belief that we are in continuity with the same ancient Church which Christ started.
"Where the Bishop is, there let the multitude of believers be;
even as where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church''
Ignatius of Antioch, 107 A.D
even as where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church''
Ignatius of Antioch, 107 A.D
posted by Russ Rentler, M.D. | 7:41 AM
3 Comments:
Wonderful! May God keep blessing your diocese! Ad multos annos!
Speaking of that physical, living continuity, I remember well the first ordination I attended. It's very captivating to see the Church quietly go about maintaining this 2,000-year-old physical continuity to Jesus Himself.
You know what's interesting guys?
Despite the way the world (and some non-Catholics) want to marginalize and dismiss this "dead old church" , tomorrow's ordination of the new bishop will make front page news in the Allentown newspaper, almost guaranteed!
Even the world fins something newsworthy with watching the "apostolic baton" being passed.
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