{"id":114050,"date":"2023-08-15T12:55:47","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T16:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/?p=114050"},"modified":"2025-02-06T17:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T22:23:09","slug":"meet-fr-john-bartunek-lc-new-member-of-the-rc-territorial-directive-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/meet-fr-john-bartunek-lc-new-member-of-the-rc-territorial-directive-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Fr. John Bartunek, LC, New Member of the RC Territorial Directive College"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u201cRegnum Christi is my spiritual home \u2013 this is where God led me, where he wants me to be and become part of the story of salvation, and where he wants me to receive his grace and grow to spiritual maturity myself. This is my spiritual family.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

On July 1st<\/sup> of this year, Fr. John Bartunek, LC, joined the North American Territorial Directive College for a three-year term.<\/p>\n

Before becoming a Legionary priest, Fr. John received his BA in history from Stanford University in 1990, and worked as a high school history teacher, drama director, and baseball coach, and even spent a year as a professional actor in Chicago. In 1993, however, he heard and followed the call to the priesthood, joining the Legionaries of Christ and becoming ordained a priest ten years later in 2003. Since then, Fr. John has gone on to earn his doctorate in moral theology, has taught at various ecclesiastical institutions at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, and has contributed news commentary regarding religious issues on NBC, CNN, Fox, and the BBC.<\/p>\n

In his prolific writing apostolate, Fr. John has written and published many retreats<\/a>, essays<\/a>, and books<\/a>, including The Better Part: A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer<\/a>, Spiritual but not Religious: The Search for Meaning in a Material World<\/a>, and Inside the Passion<\/a>, the only authorized, behind-the-scenes explanation of Mel Gibson\u2019s The Passion of the Christ, for which Fr. John provided on-set spiritual support. Fr. John currently resides in Atlanta, where he serves as the Territorial Vicar on the North American Territorial Council for the Legionaries of Christ.<\/p>\n

Fr. John describes his first experience of the Regnum Christi charism as \u201clove at first sight.\u201d After converting to the Catholic Church, Fr. John felt a call to the priesthood, and began spending time with a variety of religious orders to discern where exactly God might be calling him to live out his vocation as a priest. But immediately upon visiting the Legionary novitiate in Cheshire, Connecticut, Fr. John knew that the Legionaries of Christ was where God wanted him to be, and that this was to be his spiritual home. It was here where he learned about Regnum Christi as an apostolic body and a larger spiritual family to which he now belonged. And here he found that what he loved most about the Legionaries of Christ \u2013 their joyful sense of urgency for the mission, their fidelity to the Church and to the Holy Father, their community spirit, and their very strong Eucharistic and Christ-centered spirituality \u2013 were all characteristics that were shared and enriched by the rest of the Regnum Christi members.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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