Archbishop Dolan was officially installed as the tenth spiritual leader of the Archdiocese of New York at a ceremony last week replete with spiritual profundity and ecclesiastical pageantry.
You would have thought it was St. Patrick’s Day again in New York.
True, the long green line painted on 5th Avenue had faded since March 17 and St. Patrick’s Day Parade committee chairman John Dunleavy was not wearing his tuxedo with long tails and tall silk hat while issuing orders, but just about everything else felt like the feast day of the patron saint of the New York Archdiocese, St. Patrick himself.
The Installation Mass at the cathedral had the air of a resumption of the golden age of the Irish Catholic presence in this immigrant city which later became the capital of the world.
But the ceremony wasn’t just about the past greatness of the Catholic Church in New York; it was more about the bright albeit challenging future.
All of New York’s leading elected officials, the Vatican’s top diplomats and members of the faithful joined hundreds of priests and nuns to install this 59-year-old affable and down to earth priest, who was born in Missouri of Irish lineages and most recently served as the church’s leader in Milwaukee.
The life story of Tim Dolan is that of a man whose roots were growing up in St. Louis in a hard working loving family, being faithful to their church and loyal to each other and their neighbors.
And the benefits of all these were made plain as Dolan’s personality radiated through the packed cathedral for a ceremony that was also a farewell to Cardinal Edward Egan who is retiring after leading the archdiocese for the past nine years.
Cardinal Egan, a former grand marshal of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade has promised that he is not forgetting the city that has been his home for almost a decade but his role will be very much in the background as his successor leads the archdiocese and its 2.5 million Catholics into the second decade of the new century.
Echo columnist Ray Flynn is a former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.