During a Mass held before approximately 2,000 people at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in North Baltimore earlier today, Archbishop William E. Lori, 61, was installed as the 16th Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the oldest Catholic diocese in the United States
Following the reading of the Apostolic Mandate by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Pope Benedict XVI’s representative to the United States, the Apostolic Nuncio and Edwin Cardinal O’Brien, Archbishop Lori’s predecessor, escorted the Kentucky native to the cathedra, or bishop’s chair, marking the formal beginning of Archbishop Lori’s episcopacy in the Premier See.
In his homily, Archbishop Lori challenged Catholics to defend and uphold the legacies of Archbishop John Carroll and Cardinal James Gibbons, who bravely fought for religious freedom so that Catholics and others could practice their faith freely and openly.
“Let us never imagine that the faith we profess with such personal conviction is merely a private matter,” he said. “By its nature, the profession of faith is a public matter –for by its very nature, the faith is meant to be spread far and wide and acted upon in and through Church institutions and in the witness of individual believers.”