49TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE OPENING OF THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL IS BISHOP SOTO'S 4TH ANNIVERSARY OF APPOINTMENT TO THE SACRAMENTO DIOCESE...........

On January 25, 1959, His Holiness, Pope John XXIII, surprised the Catholic Church and the World, by calling for the convening of the twenty first Ecumenical Council in the history of Christianity - to "open the windows of the Church to a New Pentecost", of reform and renewal.  More than three and a half yeatrs later, on October 11, 1962, +John XXXIII opened the Second Vatican Council presiding at a Mass of the Holy Spirit with some three thousand Bishops from around the globe.  Today, the Golden Jubilee Year of that three year, four session, period of conciliar debates and dialogues between the World's Bishops, under two Popes, as +John XXXIII, died in June 1963, and Pope Paul VI who succeeded him led the Vatican II Council forward; which promulgated sixteen Documents that have shaped the direction of the Church in late 20th Century and now, more than a decade of the 3rd Millennium of Catholic-Christianity.  On October 11, 2007, the sapphire jubille of the date the Second Vatican Council began, the Diocese of Sacramento received the appointment of a Coadjuator Bishop, + Jaime Soto, from the Diocese of Orange, California, who became the Ninth Bishop of the Sacramento Diocese on December 1, 2008, and is presently serving.  On October 11, 1962, Bishop Soto, was a young boy, whose future priestly and episcopal vocation as a priest and bishop, has been impacted by the work of the Council, as has been all our lives.  May the fruitness of God's Spirit and the continuing, concerted efforts of the People of God, in collaborative and collegial ministries of Faith, Fellowship, and Fidelity, to Gospel Values be reinvigorated in our mutual committment to Jesus Christ and our Discipleship as Catholic - Christians everywhere in the World, and in the pastoral  ministry as a Chief  Shepherd of the Universal Church, as Bishop of Sacramento, His Excellency, + Jaime Soto is carry out, in the thirtieth year of his ordained ministry as a Priest of Jesus Christ and Bishop of the Catholic Community of Believers...........Ad Multos Annos To The Church And To Our Ordinary,   Fr.  Troy