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Father Chori Seraiah is a Roman Catholic priest and convert from The Anglican Church in America (ACA). He was born in 1967 in Garden Grove, California. He attended Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California, and Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida, and then spent 16 years in protestant ministry before converting to the Catholic Church. It was during his years as an Anglican priest while he was studying Church history and biblical theology that he decided to join the Catholic Church. He then attended St. Mary's Seminary in Houston, Texas for his preparation for holy orders. He was ordained to the priesthood (with the special permission of Pope Benedict XVI) on July 8th, 2012. He is now a priest of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, and says that he loves his vocation(s). For the first four years of his service in the Catholic Church, he served in the Diocese of Des Moines until he was called by Bishop Lopes to serve as the founding pastor of St. George Catholic Church in Republic, Missouri. He and his wife Catherine have five children. You can read his blog here: old blog & new blog.
His Excellency Steven J. Lopes is the first bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter and pastor to all its members and clergy in the United States and Canada.
Steven Joseph Lopes was born in 1975 in Fremont, Calif. to Barbara Jane and (the late) Dr. José de Oliveira Lopes. His father was Portuguese and his mother is Polish. José emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1960s and became an American citizen in 1970. Barbara Jane was born and raised in Detroit, where much of her family still resides.
Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 17 December 1936, is the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State. Francis is the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, and the first from the Southern Hemisphere. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bergoglio was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969, and from 1973 to 1979 was Argentina's provincial superior of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). He became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II.
