A Grand Entrance at St. Patrick's Cathedral, by Paul Vitello, New York Times, April 14, 2009

A Grand Entrance at St. Patrick's Cathedral

By Paul Vitello
New York Times
April 14, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/nyregion/15bishop.html?ref=nyregion

In ceremonies marked by solemn Christian ritual and the stagecraft of the grand entrance, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan was warmly welcomed Tuesday night as the new leader and high priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

Seven weeks after Pope Benedict XVI selected him to succeed Cardinal Edward M. Egan, who is retiring at age 77, Archbishop Dolan, 59, a mirthful pastor and a theological conservative who has headed the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for the last seven years, rapped sharply on the massive bronze front doors of St. Patrick's Cathedral. In the intricately scripted rite, the doors were pulled open and he proceeded inside for a vespers ceremony — the start of two days of ritual, prayer and music that will make him the most prominent Catholic prelate in the nation.

Archbishop Dolan donned the steeple-shaped miter of his office, sat for the first time in the carved wooden throne on St. Patrick's altar and grinned his toothy smile at a wildly applauding crowd of 3,000, composed mainly of priests, nuns, bishops and deacons representing the 2.5 million Catholics of the archdiocese's 400 parishes.

At St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Tuesday, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, right, was welcomed by Cardinal Edward M. Egan, the departing leader of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.
Photo by Todd Heisler

In his first homily, the archbishop quickly let loose with a voice of informality and humor that fit his reputation as the man who once wore the "cheesehead" hat of a Wisconsin sports fan to Mass in Milwaukee. He thanked the archdiocese's people for welcoming him, then revealed the trepidation he felt when invited to take the job.

"Go away, Lord! I'm not your man," he said in recounting an inner dialogue with God. "My Spanish is lousy and my English not much better. I'm still angry at New York for taking Favre and Sabathia from us in Wisconsin. The Yankees and Mets over the Cardinals and Brewers? Forget it!" he said. It was the first homily at St. Patrick's in recent memory that was punctuated with exclamation marks in the official transcript.

But Archbishop Dolan also referred, if passingly, to "the scandal of clergy sexual abuse," a problem that has delivered devastating blows to the church's moral standing and financial ledger. He listed it among a set of problems he said were facing the church, including "threats to marriage and family, to the unborn baby and fragile human life at all stages," and the growing scarcity of priests.

Folding together his personal fears and the stark problems facing his church, the new archbishop invoked the words of Pope John Paul II in addressing the United Nations on his last visit to New York in 1995. "We must not be afraid of the future," he said. "It is no accident that we are here."

The capacity crowd rose to give him a standing ovation.

Tuesday night's services served, in a sense, as a dress rehearsal for the much more public program on Wednesday afternoon, when invited guests will include Gov. David A. Paterson, New York's two United States senators, and a wide array of clergy members from other faiths. In that roughly three-hour ceremony, Archbishop Dolan will be officially installed and celebrate his first Mass in the post.

The two days of ritual are based in a tradition codified by the church in the third century. Every blessing, hymn, exchange of documents, change of vestments, seating arrangement and processional comes from the canonical book known as the Bishop's Ceremony.

In the few unscripted pieces available to the incoming archbishop, though, there are signs of a personality with working-class heft.

For instance, Archbishop Dolan's choice of soloist for the musical interlude following the communion rite at Wednesday's service is Ronan Tynan, best known as the cantor of Yankee Stadium for his post-9/11 performances of "God Bless America." At Archbishop Dolan's request he will sing Schubert's "Ave Maria." (In that spot in the ceremony in 2000, Cardinal Egan chose Renee Fleming to perform Mozart's "Exultate Iubilate.")

Archbishop Dolan becomes the 13th Catholic leader of New York since the Vatican appointed its first bishop here in 1808. He is the 10th archbishop, and the first since the mid-19th century to succeed a living predecessor as prelate of the New York region. A vast territory, the archdiocese includes Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island and seven northern counties, stretching from to the parishes of the Catskills.

Tuesday night's ceremony began with a rafter-rattling blast of organ music as accompaniment to a colorful procession of flags, each from one of the 19 geographic regions of the archdiocese. As the marchers filed by outside the cathedral, Archbishop Dolan, awaiting his place at the end of the parade, cheered them from the sidelines.

After that, another procession was launched, this one setting the stage for the service's most resonant moment. Priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals, many of them leaders in the American hierarchy, each wearing the red skull cap or the purple sash or the white robe of his rank and order, solemnly marched up the aisle toward the great brass doors at the main entrance to the cathedral. There, they awaited the three knocks that were to announce the arrival of the new archbishop.

At about 7 p.m., Archbishop Dolan knocked. To overcome what archdiocese staff had feared would be a meager sound announcing himself, they provided him with a hammer. He rapped six times, and then after a pause, rapped three more times, smiling broadly as a rumble of laughter rolled through the assembly of Catholics inside the cathedral.

In church tradition, the knocks symbolize the humble supplication of the new archbishop, seeking a welcome from the flock.

When the doors were flung wide, Archbishop Dolan was officially welcomed by a contingent of hierarchs, including Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the apostolic nuncio or ambassador to the United States from the Vatican.

Cardinal Egan turned and shook his successor's hand, using both his hands.

"Allow me to assure you, that's the last time you're going to have to knock twice to get into St. Pat's," Cardinal Egan said during his welcoming remarks.

Soon after, the cathedral erupted in loud applause as Archbishop Dolan was led to the altar, and for the first time in his new home church, donned the tall headdress known as the miter.

Sitting in the audience were the archbishop's mother and other family members. Sister Mary Bosco Daly, 84, his second-grade teacher from his native St. Louis, came from Ireland. From the altar, she read from the first Letter of Saint Peter.

The cathedral filled with the sounds of different languages as prayers were read in Akan, Korean, Portuguese, German and Mandarin.

At the end of the service, the crowd inside the cathedral erupted in wave after wave of applause as Archbishop Dolan stepped into the pews and shook the many hands outstretched. Many in the pews were priests and members of religious orders, but many were lay people active in their churches who had received the two tickets allotted to each parish for the event.

At the front of the cathedral, the new archbishop then mingled with the many priests and seminarians gathered to offer their congratulations. He moved like a veteran politician at a get-out-the -vote rally, putting his arm around one man after another, and pointing at those who were too far away to touch.