Last Saturday, after many years of consultation and work, the Holy Father promulgated the new Constitution on the Roman Curia, "Praedicate Evangelium." Many of the ideas contained therein have already been implemented by the creation of new dicasteries and policies within the curia. Still, it certainly pulls together many of the themes of Pope Francis's pontificate, and has evangelization as its unifying theme. As I always say, if the Church exists to evangelize, the curia must exist to evangelize, also.

Among the changes it implements is the upgrading of our child protection commission to become a full office that will be connected with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and have the responsibility of working to promote a culture of safeguarding within the curia itself. In addition, the Holy Father has also initiated a new section of the Secretariat of State to promote the spirituality and pastoral care of those working in the Holy See.

Baptism of Isabel Lobao

This past weekend, I had the joy of celebrating the baptism of Isabel Lobao, whose parents, Carolina and Martim, I had married and also baptized. (I also presided at the weddings of their parents and their eight brothers and sisters!) Isabel is named after her grandmother, who was with us for the celebration.

The baptism was held on the feast of St. Joseph, and we dedicated the baby to St. Joseph.

It was held at a beautiful church in Lisbon, Sao Nicolau, where some of our Boston seminarians have stayed while studying Portuguese.

The church is right in the heart of Lisbon and not far from the Praca do Comercio, which will certainly be a site for some of the events at next year's World Youth Day.

Board of Trustees

My trip was very short because I had to fly to Washington for a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Catholic University of America on Monday.

At the meeting, our principal task was to elect a new president for the university to replace John Garvey, who is retiring. The search committee considered about 160 candidates for the position, which they whittled down to a shortlist for presentation to the board. After the board voted, the chosen name was presented to the Board of Fellows and will now be sent on to the Congregation for Catholic Education for approval by the Holy See. Once the Holy See gives its approval, the name will be announced. (Sorry, there will be no spoilers here!)

Consecration of Ukraine and Russia

Finally, today, in response to the Holy Father's appeal for the Church throughout the world to join him in consecrating Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we held a special Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

We were joined by representatives of the Ukrainian community, including Father Yaroslav Nalysnyk, the pastor of Christ the King Ukrainian Catholic Parish and Myron Kravchuk of the Ukrainian aid organization UkraineForward.org.

Bishop Reed was our homilist for the Mass, after which I offered some remarks and led the prayer of consecration.

Our gathering concluded with Bishop Reed leading a rosary for the people of Ukraine.