Homily for Mass at the Gathering of U.S. Cardinals ~ Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption ~ May 1, l998 Part 1 of 2
The first reading, from the letter written by the Apostle Paul to the Christians at Colossae, was addressed to a community Paul had never visited in person. He wrote from prison, most likely from Rome, to instruct the people about the attitudes and virtues they should cultivate and how they should go about their work. The Church renews this message for us today, in this setting.
The Apostle Paul insisted on love as the key virtue, “which binds the rest together and makes them perfect.” Love is the work of the Holy Spirit, a gift poured into our hearts at baptism, along with faith and hope. And this church is both a witness to and a place for the Holy Spirit's action touching and guiding our Church in the United States.
Through the Holy Spirit's action, Pope Pius VI was moved in l789 to name John Carroll of Maryland the first bishop of our infant nation. Father Carroll was laboring here, in his own home territory, thanks to a providential decision of an earlier pope. Like other Maryland Catholics of his day, John Carroll had been sent to Europe for his education. There he determined to enter the Society of Jesus and became in time a priest teaching in the Belgian College which had been his alma mater. In l773, providentially for us, Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Jesuits, freeing up John Carroll and others for ministry on this side of the Atlantic.
The Holy Spirit acted through the laying on of hands and prayer of Charles Walmesley, bishop and vicar apostolic, in St. Mary's Chapel, Lulworth Castle, England, on the Feast of the Assumption, August l5, l790. This infusion of God's Spirit is reflected in this Eucharist by the presence of Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles, whose episcopal lineage goes back to Archbishop Carroll. It is my privilege to recall John Carroll also by wearing tonight his pectoral cross, the very cross he wore in the distinguished portrait by Rembrandt Peale you will see this evening at the Convention Center.
The Holy Father assigned John Carroll two early tasks. One was to build a cathedral. For this undertaking Bishop Carroll chose Benjamin Latrobe, at that time charged also with the design and supervision of the construction of the nation's Capitol in Washington. Latrobe wanted to build a Gothic church, but Bishop Carroll pressed for a neo-classical design, creating Lulworth chapel on a larger scale and at the same time linking the country's first cathedral with the construction style of the newly formed District of Columbia.
Built high on a hill, the Basilica became a symbol of the city. In its original design, the interior was bathed with natural light from windows in the dome, and the church itself was, and is, a testament to a golden age when an ancient faith and a newfound freedom met. Please God, these next few years will see this holy building and its heritage conserved and renewed, as much as possible, according to the original intent of Carroll and Latrobe.
Bishop Carroll's other task was to provide seminary education for American students in the United States: again the Holy Spirit acted, as Sulpicians fleeing the persecution of the French Revolution came to found in 1791 the first seminary, now St. Mary's Seminary and University here in Baltimore, and, in 1808, to assist in establishing the second, Mt. St. Mary's, Emmitsburg.
Faculty and students from both seminaries came in force to celebrate together the dedication of this cathedral in l821, as both have come here more recently to celebrate together their common heritage, and both are represented among those serving at this Mass.
This place has witnessed the Holy Spirit's action in other ways: so many bishops were consecrated here to be pastors and apostles across the nation, including especially the sees where cardinals now serve. Because this building was still under construction, the first bishops of Philadelphia and Boston were ordained in 1810 at the Pro-Cathedral of St. Peter. Later bishops of Boston and New York were consecrated here, and I have no doubt that at those Masses in l825 and l826 Archbishop Ambrose Marechal used the chalice he received from the hands of Pope Pius VII in l822, a chalice on exhibit this evening, and the crozier, or pastoral staff, which I am using at this Mass.
Among other bishops consecrated here as shepherds for diocesan churches from Florida to Idaho and from New England to New Mexico, were two brothers, Bishop Thomas Foley, Bishop of Chicago at the time of the great fire and builder of Holy Name Cathedral, and his younger brother, Bishop John Foley, who guided the Diocese of Detroit into the early years of this century. The Archdiocese of Washington could claim this church as its Cathedral for a century-and-a-half until 1940, when it became an archdiocese and gained its own Cathedral of St. Matthew.
