Last Saturday, we had the joy of ordaining nine new permanent deacons for the Archdiocese of Boston at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

There were many representatives from the diaconate community, priests, pastors, and parishioners there to support the candidates. The cathedral was filled.

Among this year's class were a Vietnamese and a Brazilian deacon. They will, of course, be very helpful in our ministry to our ethnic communities.

We are very grateful to Deacon Chris Connelly and all those involved in the diaconate program for their hard work forming these men and making this special day possible.



Anniversary Mass

On Sunday, I went to St. George Parish in Framingham for a celebration of the parish's 175th anniversary. St. George broke off from St. Mary's Parish in Waltham in 1847, and although the church building is not the original, it is certainly one of the oldest parishes in the archdiocese.

I'm always very impressed by the beautiful windows at St. George.

I met a sister of Notre Dame at the Mass who has worked in the parish for decades. She shared a photo of the parish's centennial celebrations in 1947 with me. I thought it was wonderful.



Mass at the cathedral

Then, that afternoon, I returned to the cathedral to celebrate a Mass to thank the donors and volunteers who have been supportive of our Catholic Appeal over this last year. This was an initiative of our chief philanthropy officer, Gavan Mooney, to bring together friends and benefactors to express our gratitude and encourage them in their support of the Catholic Appeal.

It was very encouraging to see such a large crowd. Many of the people were seeing the renovated cathedral for the first time, and there was a lot of enthusiasm around that.

After the Mass, I was very happy to greet many of our Appeal supporters as they left the Cathedral.



Installation of Melkite Greek Catholic Eparch of Newton

Wednesday, I was very happy to attend the installation of the new Melkite Greek Catholic Eparch of Newton, Francois Beyrouti, at Our Lady of the Annunciation Cathedral in West Roxbury. He is replacing Bishop Samra, who had been here for many years.

Bishop Beyrouti was born in Lebanon, but his family moved to Canada when he was very young. He was ordained to the priesthood in Canada and ministered there for many years. Then, about 10 years ago, he came to the U.S. and worked in California.

Because he was not a bishop when he was named eparch, he was ordained a few weeks ago in Canada before coming here to be installed. In fact, in the past, this was also the practice in the Latin Rite -- when you become a bishop, you would be ordained where you are from but then be installed in the diocese that you were being sent to. However, it is now more common in the Latin Rite to have the ordination and the installation together.