Faith of His Father
Pope Benedict XVI today appointed Msgr. John Barres, chancellor of the Diocese of Wilmington, Del., as the new bishop of Allentown, Pa.
As this article notes, Bishop-elect Barres is the son of Oliver Barres, a former Congregationalist minister who converted to Catholicism and became a renowned Catholic apologist.
His mother Marjorie was also a Congregational minister, who joined with her husband in converting to Catholicism. Oliver Barres described his conversion in his autobiographical book, One Shepherd, One Flock.
In the introduction to the book, Frank Sheed wrote this about Oliver Sheed, “He has a hunger and thirst for reality, for the objective. That a creed stimulates or consoles or quiets the conscience, that it meets one’s desires or felt needs — all that is splendid, but secondary. Unless it is true, he will have none of it.”
