Catholic news was made yesterday, Jan. 26, with the ordination of Reverend John. D. Cornelius, the first married man to become a Catholic Priest in Wellsville, New York, as reported by the “New York Daily News”.
Kneeling before the Most Reverend Richard J. Malone, Bishop of Buffalo, John Cornelius took a vow of chastity at Immaculate Conception Church in Wellsville, New York, becoming the first married Catholic Priest as his wife and three daughters proudly watched from a nearby pew.
A former Episcopal Priest, John Cornelius, 64, believes he has finally answered God’s calling.
It’s wonderful. I feel like I’ve been working my whole life to answer God’s call and here I am.
The newly ordained, married Catholic Priest, will have to live the rest of his life without having a sexual relationship with his wife Sharyl, of whom he has spent the past 33 years with, telling the “Daily News.” “I’ve raised three girls already… sex is a gift from God for procreation.”
Sharyl Cornelius, wife of the newly ordained married Priest, has given her blessing to her husband to proceed in his Godly work from an Episcopalian Priest to a Catholic Priest. John Cornelius converted to Catholicism three years ago because he felt his church was becoming too liberal for him, retiring after 20 years in 2010.
There was the ordination of the homosexual priest in New England. Then it came time for women's ordination. ... It may have been okay for other people, but it was just too much for me. I needed someplace where there was order.
However, not being able to celebrate Mass left a big void in his life, and voluntarily, after hearing the call from Pope Benedict last year, asking converted Episcopalian Priests to fill the dwindling amount of Catholic Priests, John D. Cornelius began his journey to fulfill God’s calling. The first married Catholic Priest from New York will preside over other former Episcopalians who have converted to Catholicism in a suburb of Rochester at the Fellowship of Saint Alban in Henrietta.
Source: "New York Daily News" and "New York Daily News"
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