Father John Jay Hughes, the son and grandson of Episcopal priests, has been a Catholic priest since 1968. He says that his goals as a speaker are to "feed the mind, move the heart, and stir the soul." He is the author of 11 books, and earned his doctorate in theology at the University of Muenster, where his teachers included Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI.

Father John Jay Hughes speaks not just to the head but also to the heart, the fruit of over a half century of pulpit ministry. The son and grandson of priests in the Episcopal Church, he served six years as an Episcopal priest himself. Father Hughes says,"I've heard some horrible preaching (haven't we all?). But in my youth I also heard great preaching that fed my mind, moved my heart and stirred my soul. Whenever I go into the pulpit, I am mindful of two imperatives. First, the Church commissioned me to preach Good News. And second, I am there to respond to the request made in John's gospel, chapter twelve, by 'some Greeks' to the apostle Philip: 'Sir, we would like to see Jesus.' I love being a priest: it's all I ever wanted. I invite you to join me on this Journey through the Parables. I can promise that you won't be bored."

Fr. John Jay Hughes has just published his autobiography, No Ordinary Fool: A Testimony to Grace (Tate Publishing, 344 pp, 24 photos, $19.99). Eugene Kennedy calls it: "The most profound memoir of a spiritual search since Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain." Papal biographer George Weigel's 1000-word Foreword calls it "a most dramatic life."