This book has color pictures!
 
The life of Father Vili Lehtoranta started in a common workers’ district in Turku, Finland. From a Lutheran family and a secular education in a liberal public school system he ended up becoming a Traditional Catholic priest in the United States. In school he was fascinated by history, especially of the old Roman Empire and the French Revolution. The love of history led him to discover the Roman Catholic Church, which has lasted longer than any state or empire in the world, and which has endured all the fierce persecutions through the centuries.

In Blessings and Crosses, Father recounts his journey from Finland to Saint Gertrude the Great Roman Catholic Church. The book is divided into three parts. In the first part Father gives a summary of the history of Finland; the second part deals with his personal background, his childhood and growing up in Turku; and the third part describes his conversion to the Catholic Faith, and how he found Sedevacantism thanks to Father Anthony Cekada. It also recounts his priestly training at Most Holy Trinity Seminary under Bishop Donald Sanborn, and his ordination to the priesthood by Bishop Daniel Dolan in 2011, as well as different controversies he has gone through while functioning as a Sedevacantist priest at Saint Gertrude the Great.

Father Vili Lehtoranta was born in Turku, Finland in 1978. He received his degree of Master of Theology (Church history) from the University of Helsinki in 2007. He first became a Novus Ordo Catholic in 1998, then a Traditional Catholic in 2006, and was ordained to the priesthood in 2011. He currently works as a priest at Saint Gertrude the Great Roman Catholic Church at West Chester, Ohio, and also as a teacher in the parish school and in the Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary.