Father C. John McCloskey reflects on lessons learned from 30 years of priesthood

[Michie]

Rome, Italy, Aug 8, 2011 / 10:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- He is one of the most popular and recognizable priests in the U.S. and beyond – and this month Father C. John McCloskey chalks up three decades in the priesthood.

“These 30 years have been magnificent,” he told CNA Aug. 5, adding, “what could possibly be better than being a priest?!”

“Through God’s grace so many Masses celebrated, confessions heard, baptisms, weddings, people brought in to the Church and, happily, God has used me as an instrument in spite of myself to bring dozens of vocations to the priesthood, religious life and to the new ecclesial movements, and all this with my evident faults and human failings.”

Fr. McCloskey’s road to the priesthood, though, certainly wasn't a conventional clerical tale. A graduate in economics from Columbia University in New York he worked for Citibank and Merrill Lynch on Wall Street before being ordained a priest of Opus Dei in 1981.

Since then he’s gone on to become a best-selling author and popular religious commentator on both television and radio, most notably with EWTN.

He is perhaps best known, though, for guiding into the Catholic Church such notable figures as Robert Novak, Judge Robert Bork, Senator Sam Brownback, General Josiah Bunting and Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founders of NARAL Pro-Choice America, who died earlier this year.

Continued- http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/father-c.-john-mccloskey-reflects-on-lessons-learned-from-30-years-of-priesthood/

 

[Irenaeus]

May God Bless and protect him in his ministry. A life well-lived, with serene conscience and pure before God, is it's own reward.