John Vianney, Good and Holy Priest
O holy Priest of Ars, you lived in an age of much upheaval, in a time when men turned their backs on God. Your bishop told of a parish to which he wished to send you where there was no love. He assigned you to Ars and said that you would be the Priest who would enable the people to know the love of God. Not only did you draw these people back to God, but your saintly reputation soon spread and many people were converted to a life of holiness. You said that a good Priest, a Priest after Christ’s own heart is the greatest treasure that God can give a parish. Give us such Priests!
O great St. John Vianney, once again we are living in day of upheaval. There is much evil in the word. Obtain for Cardinal Dolan the grace to persevere in his faith and never to despair. May he walk with the Lord and trust in Him all the days of his life. Obtain through your heavenly intercession, for Cardinal Dolan the grace of modeling his life after that of Jesus Christ, that his people will know the love of God. More than ever the people need him to be able to bring the world to Christ.
Pray for Cardinal Dolan and all Priests, O great Priest of Ars.
Novena Prayer: O holy Priest of Ars, St. John Marie Vianney, you loved God and served Him faithfully as His Priest. Now you see God face to face in heaven. You never despaired but persevered in your faith until you died. Remember now the dangers, fears and anxieties that surround Cardinal Dolan and intercede for him in all his needs and troubles especially console him in his most difficult moments, grant him serenity in the midst of crisis, and protect him from evil. O St. John Vianney, I have confidence in your intercession.
Pray for Cardinal Dolan in a special way during this novena.
Amen.
Coming Home 
Unrelated to this post, I’m wondering if you are thinking of weighing in at all on the vaccine debate I’ve been seeing lately in the Catholic blogosphere (such as on Simcha Fisher’s blog: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/simchafisher/2014/09/25/rational-catholic-continues-dismantling-the-shoddy-science-in-dr-deishers-vaccineautism-study/)?
You’ve touched upon the issues in past posts (on the Ice Bucket Challenge, HPV vaccine, etc.). I read these posts with great interest, because even as a very “secular Catholic,” I had to make decisions on whether or not to vaccinate my kids.
For the record, we only opted out of one vaccine — the BCG used to be standard in Japan (it no longer is), but TB is no longer endemic here, and it can cause false positives in TB skin tests, which then would require X-ray follow-ups to make sure. It seemed the downsides outweighed the positives of a bit of protection from a disease we no longer need to worry about — at least compared to the terrifying 1950’s, when MOST adolescents here were exposed to it.
I held off on getting the HPV vaccine for my daughter, just because it was new and I wanted to watch for a while, but finally went ahead with it.