NEW PRIEST

AT RIGHT, The Rev. John A Hutta II is ordained Saturday as a priest for the Diocese of Allentown at the Cathedral of Saint Catherine of Siena in Allentown. Bishop Alfred A. Schlert administered the sacrament of holy orders, while celebrating the rite for ordination to the priesthood.

ABOVE: It was standing room only Sunday at the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Palmerton as the bishop and many priests and deacons from the Diocese of Allentown and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, his family and friends and parishioners of Sacred Heart gathered to celebrate his first Mass.

Hutta has been studying for the priesthood for the past seven years. His first assignment is to The Sacred Heart Catholic Church in West Reading located in western Berks County.

He is the first Tamaqua Area High School graduate to be ordained a Catholic priest in over 50 years, the first from Sacred Heart Parish in Palmerton in 27 years and only the ninth from Carbon County since 1981.