“I remember a few months ago over Sunday lunch, it had just dawned on my second daughter, Theresa, that there were some married priests in the Catholic Church. So she turned to me in an instant and said, ‘Well dad, why aren’t you doing that?’”
Pope Benedict’s visit to England last September also played its part in Hellyer’s story of conversion, in particularly the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman.
“Myself and Margaret went to the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman in Birmingham on the Sunday morning. We both really got a sense that the journey Blessed John Henry made was also the way that God was leading us.”
This next Friday, June 17, Hellyer will be ordained a Catholic priest at Plymouth’s cathedral. He says he doesn’t know quite how he’ll be put to use after his ordination but mostly likely he’ll end up splitting his time between Ordinariate duties and helping the local diocese, perhaps in chaplaincy work at a school or hospital.
“I think that the new Ordinariate is very much part of the ‘new evangelization’ of the western world that Blessed Pope John Paul II outlined. And I think the Catholic Church is waking up to the need to reach out to people and re-evangelize in a way that’s most appropriate in our age.”
Despite the fact that he’s leaving, Hellyer is receiving good wishes from his former Anglican parishioners, many of whom “are watching what happens very closely.” That includes keeping an eye on Hellyer’s online blog where he’s been charting his conversion story.
“So our work is quite missionary, really,” he says.
“And it’s the mission that I find most exciting!”