As you all know by now, the announcement was made early Monday morning that the Holy Father has selected Archbishop-elect Richard Henning of Providence to be the next Archbishop of Boston.

We have been waiting a long time for the news, and we are very grateful that the Holy Father has not forgotten about us and is sending a very fine pastor to Boston.

As is customary, Archbishop-elect Henning came to Boston that morning to be introduced to the people of the archdiocese.

He had asked if we could begin the day celebrating the 9:00 a.m. Mass together at the Pastoral Center, which I thought was a very good idea. My concern was how to get the word out in advance so people would know to attend, but Rocco Palmo took care of that!

Many members of the staff were able to join us, along with the auxiliary bishops and leaders of some of our key ministries. It was an opportunity for us to welcome him, pray for him and invite him to greet some of the people on the staff.

After the Mass, we showed him around the Pastoral Center a little bit, and then, at 10:00 a.m., we had the press conference. I was very happy to see there was such interest on the part of the media, with many different outlets in attendance. [ . . .]



Knights of Columbus Supreme Convention

From the press conference, I left directly for the airport to fly to Quebec for the Knights of Columbus Supreme Convention.

There is no direct flight to Quebec City, so we went through Montreal, where we ran into Cardinal Garcia Rodriguez of Havana and Dr. Antonio Sena.

We were all waiting for hours because flights that day were terribly delayed. We finally arrived in Quebec City at 1:30 a.m. Luckily, the opening Mass wasn't until 9:30, so I got a little sleep!

This is the second time in my years as a Knight that we've had the Supreme Convention in Quebec City. This is the 350th anniversary of the Archdiocese of Quebec, and that's why Cardinal Lacroix invited us to return there.

It is such a beautiful city with so much history. In many ways, the Church was almost the founder of that city -- between the Jesuits, the Ursuline Sisters, and the first bishop, St. Francois de Laval.

Quebec City is one of only two walled cities in North America. The other is St. Augustine, Florida.

The opening Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Lacroix, who gave a beautiful homily.

There were meetings during the day, and then, in the evening, was the States Dinner.

They invited Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the Cardinal Archpriest of St. Peter's Basilica, to speak. [ . . .]

I also gave the keynote in which I spoke about the globalization of indifference.

It was wonderful to be together with thousands of Knights of Columbus gathered for the Supreme Convention, and the membership around the world is now about 2 million.