Mr. Phillip Max Johnson, 59, will be ordained a transitional deacon of the Diocese of Camden on Saturday, Feb. 13, at 10:30 a.m. at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Camden.
He has been assigned to Incarnation Parish, Mantua.
Mr. Johnson, a former Lutheran minister, who is married with four grown children, will be ordained a priest of the Diocese of Camden in May.
The acceptance of married men to priesthood is an exception granted on a case by case basis for reasons of pastoral need and does not signal a change in the norm of celibacy for Latin Rite priests. The candidate petitioning for the exception must already be in full communion with the Catholic Church and must receive the requisite formation before ordination.
Last November, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith notified Bishop Joseph Galante that Mr. Johnson could proceed to the diaconate and priesthood, in accord with the usual norms of church law.
He will be the second married, non-Catholic minister ordained a priest for the Diocese of Camden. In 1984, Father George C. McCormick, a former Episcopalian priest, was ordained to the Catholic priesthood by Bishop George H. Guilfoyle. Before his death in 2000, Father McCormick served at St. Matthew, National Park, and Nativity, Franklinville, and as a hospital chaplain in Vineland and part-time teacher and counselor at Gloucester Catholic High School.
Mr. Johnson and his wife Janet, who are now residents of Deptford, were received into the Catholic Church on Aug. 20, 2006 at St. Mary’s Church in Greenville, S.C.
In 2006 Mr. Johnson began studies at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family at The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., and will complete the S.T.L. program there this spring. He also completed the requirements for ordination at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Md. (2008-09).
Previously, he was pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church (1988-2006) and Grace Lutheran Church (1986-88), both in Jersey City, N.J. Before entering the Lutheran ministry, he served as co-director of Disciples House, an ecumenical study and retreat center in London.
He obtained his B.A. from Harding College in Arkansas and M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary.
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