Now for something completely non-political — and really, quite inspiring. America is about to get another married priest, but one unlike any other.

From the Louisville Courier-Journal:

David Harris never considered his conversion to Catholicism six years ago to be a rejection of the Baptist faith that nourished him from childhood in Eastern Kentucky.

But as a married man, Harris did think the switch meant he would leave one thing behind — his status as an ordained minister.

He was wrong.

Early next month, he’ll make history as the first married, former Baptist minister to become a Roman Catholic priest in the United States.

He’ll also be only the second married man from any former denomination to become a priest in the Archdiocese of Louisville.

Harris, 53, is scheduled to be ordained Sept. 6 at the Cathedral of the Assumption.

He is the only priest being ordained in the archdiocese this year.

His ordination is allowed under a seldom-used exception to the church’s requirement that priests be celibate.
Exception to the rule

The exception, which requires case-by-case permission from the Vatican, allows ordination of married converts who had been ordained Protestant ministers.

While about 100 former ministers from Episcopal and other American Protestant denominations have taken that path, Harris is the first former Baptist known to do so, according to researchers and others familiar with the process.

“All I could do is say, ‘Church, would you consider this?’ ” said Harris, now a deacon at St Aloysius Church in Pewee Valley, where he will become associate pastor upon his ordination. “If the church had said no, I would have gone on and enjoyed my faith and done something else.”

Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, who supported Harris’ application to the Vatican, said he’s looking forward to the ordination.

“I think the world of him,” he said.

Elayne Roose, a spiritual director who has advised Harris, said “we’ll all benefit” from his ordination.

She said he blends spirituality with practical experience.

“He understands what it’s like to be married, to have children, to have that life, besides being a very spiritual person,” she said.
The spiritual journey

Harris, who knew few Catholics in his native Middlesboro, traces his spiritual journey to his upbringing by “good Christian parents.”

“I loved the mountains and nature, (which conveyed) a sense of closeness to God,” said Harris, whose church office is decorated with pictures of sunflowers — and a real one from his garden — alongside icons and liturgical books.

He said he was baptized by immersion around age 10 at his church, beneath a painting of John the Baptist and Jesus at the Jordan River.

Harris later earned an engineering degree from the University of Kentucky, where he met his wife, Pam.

They now have two adult sons.

Harris worked as a design engineer in Lexington, but he said that as he volunteered in his local Baptist church, he felt a call to the ministry.

He earned a master’s of divinity from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville in 1987 while pastor of a church in eastern Jefferson County.

Harris said when his second son was born, he “really had to think about spending more time with the family.” He returned to engineering in 1992, going to work for the Louisville Regional Airport Authority.

That was when a friend gave him a thrift-store copy of a spiritual classic by the Catholic mystic St. John of the Cross, “Dark Night of the Soul.”

Harris said he was captivated by its vision of a deep contemplative prayer life and began reading more of Catholic spirituality, including works by 20th-century Kentucky author-monk Thomas Merton.

He went on retreats at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Nelson County, where Merton had lived.

Harris then began attending the Church of the Epiphany in eastern Jefferson County and was confirmed as a Catholic in 2002.

“I love the Baptist faith,” he said. “I was not moving away from it or toward something. It’s just all part of my journey.”

Visit the link for the rest, and more pictures. And let’s keep this remarkable man in our prayers. H/T to Crossing 84th Street.

Photo: by Pam Spaulding, The Courier-Journal