Pope’s inauguration Mass is sign of unity for whole church, Archbishop Lori says

Archbishop William E. Lori said it was a beautiful sight to see the whole church celebrate the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Square on a picture-perfect May morning in Rome.

The archbishop was one of many prelates to concelebrate the Mass May 18, which was attended by tens of thousands under blue skies and bright clouds. Before the Mass, the new pope circled St. Peter’s Square in the white popemobile for the first time since his election May 8.

“It really is the gathering of the Universal Church,” Archbishop Lori told the Catholic Review via Zoom from Rome. “It really is every land, every culture, every nation, every language, and it’s a beautiful thing to see the Universal Church come together.”

He said it was moving to see how the ministry of Peter, the first pope, continues. Pope Leo is “not simply the new bishop of Rome. He is the successor of St. Peter and to see the symbols of his office bestowed upon him, especially the pallium and the ring, was very, very moving.”

Italian Cardinal Mario Zenari placed a woolen band called a pallium over the shoulders of the new pontiff. The band includes five black crosses, representing the wounds of Christ. Metropolitan archbishops wear a pallium to represent their role as shepherds, and the pope wears one particularly to emphasize his pastoral responsibility for the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. 

Archbishop Lori recalled when he received the pallium when he became archbishop of Baltimore in 2012. He said he could not imagine how Pope Leo XIV felt accepting that responsibility for the universal flock. 

“I can’t imagine how our Holy Father felt, except this: what I know of him is that he is a true disciple of the Lord. He has deep faith and true trust in Christ and the Holy Spirit. And while it is a heavy burden, I believe that he will draw great strength from Christ and from the people who have been entrusted to his care,” the archbishop said. 

“So, it’s an awe-inspiring moment. It is a weighty responsibility. Yet, not even the pope walks alone. The Lord is with him, and God’s people are with him.”

The archbishop was touched that, in his homily, Pope Leo expressed tender love for Pope Francis, noting that when he died, the faithful felt like sheep without a shepherd. He appreciated the way Pope Leo said he was elected the 267th successor of Peter through no merit of his own. “I think he approaches the office with both humility and with serenity, as far as one can see,” he said.

The pope’s homily, as did his first message after his election, emphasized unity, which the archbishop characterized as “bringing us all together under the banner of Christ” in faith and in love. 

“He made a very special point of saying that the church ought to be a sign and cause of unity for humanity itself, which he described as being beset by discord and by violence,” Archbishop Lori said. “And he spoke about the church’s responsibility not only to be unified for the sake of its mission of evangelization, but also as a sacrament of the unity God wills for all humanity.”

He thinks the Holy Spirit guided the cardinals in their selection of the former Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, who was born in Chicago and became an Augustinian priest before eventually serving as a bishop in Peru. “What really brings me a lot of joy is that he is and was a missionary priest and a missionary bishop. It is, I think, a tremendous asset to bring to the papacy and to the universal mission of the church,” Archbishop Lori said.

Among the throngs in the square for the Mass were four seminarians from the Archdiocese of Baltimore who are studying for the priesthood at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, just up the Janiculum Hill from the Vatican. Deacon Thomas O’Donnell, who is scheduled to be ordained to the priesthood in June, was one of them. He said almost all of the 150 men at the NAC attended the Mass. One of the college’s professors, Mark S. Glafke, proclaimed the second reading at the Mass in English.

Archbishop Lori will return to Baltimore by way of Providence, R.I., where he will participate May 20 in the installation of Bishop Bruce A. Lewandowski, who has served as auxiliary bishop of Baltimore since 2020. “We shall miss him dearly, but he will be a great bishop of Providence,” the archbishop said.

Email Christopher Gunty at editor@CatholicReview.org.

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