Welcome Home, Marco and Penny!

Tonight at 6pm in a private ceremony at the Catholic Church in Waikerie, South Australia, Marco and Penny Vervoost and their small tribe of Vervoostlings were received in the welcoming arms of Holy Mother Church, and into full communion with their Holy Father and cherished brother in Christ, the Bishop of Rome, Papa Benedict XVI. Marco is, of course, the owner of the blog "The Confused Papist". It used to be called "The Confused Anglo Papist", and now, of course, he has dropped the "Anglo" bit (in fact, Marco is actually Germano, but we won't hold that against him). My prayer for him is that now he will be able to drop the "Confused" bit from the title!

That makes him the third Lutheran pastor in Australia to become a Catholic in the last seven (or one hundred and twenty, for that matter) years. Yes, I know that up until tonight, he was in fact an Anglican vicar, but he went through Luther Sem with Peter and me, and he was ordained a Lutheran pastor before he was an Anglican priest, its just that his journey was a little more tortuous than it was for me and Peter. Well, on second thoughts, Peter's was fairly tortuous--he made it all the way to the Catholic Church from the Brethren! Now, Penny, on the other hand, she was raised Baptist, and attended the Baptist Church in Kew as a youngster. So, she has travelled a long way too.

If this is too confusing for you, let me briefly explain the nature of the journey which Marco and Penny, and Peter and Susan, and I have undertaken IN PICTURES. We have gone from this:



To this:



To which I can only say: It's cold outside tonight, folks. Why don't ya' all come on inside?