Archbishop Lori of Baltimore enjoys the ‘very wonderful world’ of Minnesota State Fair

FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. (OSV News) — Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore had never gone to the Minnesota State Fair, the largest state fair in the country.

That changed Aug. 28, when he made his first visit and, as it happened, was part of the fair’s single-day, all-time record crowd of 200,000.

Archbishop Lori liked the fair so much he came again two days later to concelebrate Mass with a seasoned fairgoer, Father Robert Fitzpatrick, who has been celebrating state fair Masses since 2014.

The archbishop was persuaded to attend the Great Minnesota Get-Together by Jenny Kraska, executive director of the Maryland Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state’s bishops.

Kraska grew up in Prior Lake, where she attended St. Michael Catholic School. She has state fair experience and also came to Minnesota for this year’s fair, attending Mass there on Aug. 30.

“She told me that I had to come to the Minnesota State Fair or otherwise my life would not be complete,” Archbishop Lori said, jokingly. “I believed her, so here I am. I spent the whole day Friday (Aug. 28) at the fair and enjoyed myself tremendously.”

Attendance on Aug. 28 was 204,065, an all-time record for a single day, according to the state fair website.

The state fair runs through Labor Day, Sept. 7, and by the end of its 12-day run, it will have drawn nearly 2 million visitors.

Naturally, Archbishop Lori sampled the food at the state fair, choosing a corn dog, footlong hot dog and “lots of ice cream,” he said.

“I didn’t get anything with pickles; I’m sorry,” he said. “That kind of tells you I’m a foreigner.”

Archbishop Lori said he has a connection to Minnesota: Archbishop Harry J. Flynn, who headed the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis from 1995 to 2008. He died in 2019. Earlier, Archbishop Flynn had served as rector of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, which is where he met Archbishop Lori, who once was a seminarian there.

Archbishop Lori came to the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul for Archbishop Flynn’s funeral Mass and was the homilist.

That connection made it easy for Archbishop Lori to accept Kraska’s invitation to come to Minnesota and attend the state fair. He stayed at St. Paul Seminary while he was in town, and lingered at the fair after Mass Aug. 30 to enjoy more food before flying back to Baltimore that evening.

“It’s so big and vibrant and it’s such a huge, long tradition,” Archbishop Lori said of an annual 12-day event that is also known as The Great Minnesota Get-Together. “It has a life of its own. I love that,” he told The Catholic Spirit, newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

One of his favorite fair features was farm animals, a popular attraction. He especially liked the Miracle of Birth Center, which offers visitors the chance to see newborn animals such as calves, lambs, goats and piglets. An additional treat was seeing Clydesdale horses.

Archbishop Lori said his state fair experience “brought me out of my regular world into a very wonderful world and I enjoyed it.”

Most state fairs in the U.S. are held between July and October, but the busiest fair months are August and September.

The Missouri State Fair Aug. 13-23 featured Sunday Mass celebrated by Bishop Ralph B. O’Donnell of Jefferson City at the state fairground in Sedalia in Pettis County, which is in the Jefferson City Diocese.

The Aug. 16 Mass was offered under a shady tent in the middle of the Missouri State Fairground and drew about 300 Catholics from all over the state.

The sounds of people and machines blurred in the background while the aroma of fair food filled the air.

“Being here reminds me of the Tent of Meetings from our earliest traditions,” Bishop O’Donnell said, “all the way back to the time of Moses, when God’s people gathered in the presence of the Ten Commandments and the Ark of the Covenant in the Tent of Meetings that then could be struck and taken wherever they needed to go.”

Father Christopher Cordes, pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Parish of Pettis County, joined him at the altar. Assisting them was Deacon Paul Muller, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ chaplain and adviser to the carnival community in the United States.

Assigned to a large parish in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Deacon Muller is also the chaplain for the Showmen’s League of America, the oldest fraternal organization in North America for outdoor amusement, circus and carnival professionals.

He wore a special stole a show owner had made for him. It featured an embroidered image of a Ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, a concession trailer, two crosses and a Star of David.

The Gospel reading (Matthew 15:21-28) told of the Canaanite woman who pleaded with Jesus to free her daughter, who was possessed by a demon. At first, Jesus brushes her off since she is not Jewish. But he sees her persistent faith and grants her request.

Bishop O’Donnell said the story is an invitation for all people to recognize their own desire for God, as well as “our own belief in his ability to heal, to give grace, to strengthen us in those areas where we need it most.”

He urged the faithful to “be persistent in faith” and “relentless in intercession.”

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