Dear Friends,

I am leaving this Sunday for Rome to attend a special service at St. John Lateran, the Pope’s cathedral there. There has been advancement for the cause of Fr. Theodore Foley, C.P. All the investigations and interviews have been successfully concluded. Pope Leo will make an announcement that this phase of the process has been successfully concluded. There is no further need to question his holiness or his suitability for canonization. We now await a verifiable miracle.

There are certain criteria that have to be met and that is what we are awaiting. Fr. Theodore served here at St. Paul’s several years in the 1950s as Rector and left here to serve as General Consultor in Rome.

He eventually was elected as Superior General of the Passionists and served for 10 years in that capacity. 

It was during his term as Superior General that he visited the far-flung missions in Indonesia and the Pacific. On his return to Rome, he had contacted a virus, was hospitalized. Fr. Norbert Dorsey visited with him the day he died and reported that the last words he spoke were, “Jesus and Mary,  I love you.”

He died a holy death but lived an even holier life. We now celebrate that his cause for canonization is advancing. 

In Christ with love and gratitude, 

Fr. Justin Kerber, C.P., Rector