Next Saturday, August 2, we will offer the Anointing of the Sick, one of the sacraments of the Church, after the 5 p.m. Mass. This sacrament is offered to Catholics past the age of 7 who have a serious illness and to those infirmed with age. It will be a brief service, with priests anointing those who ask for the sacrament.
The surprise announcement made at last weekend’s Mass: Bishop Rhoades has nominated me to be a monsignor, and the Vatican approved that nomination. [In reality, no one in the Vatican has ever heard of me. I think that that part of the process involves someone at a desk with a rubber stamp.] This won’t change my job description at all, nor will it give me any authority to do anything I couldn’t do before. It is simply an honor bestowed on a priest whom the bishop has nominated. My understanding is that Pope Francis restricted the giving of this title; the priest must be 65 years old, and no more than 10% of the priests in a diocese can be named monsignors. At this point we have six monsignors in the diocese, four of them retired. I’ll be number seven.
The bishop will lead ceremony to install me as a monsignor on Monday, August 4 at 6 p.m. here at St. Charles. Everyone is welcome. We will have a sung evening prayer, and all of the priests and seminarians of the diocese will be invited. As I write this column I don’t have any idea what is involved in installing a monsignor. All I know is that I need to have a monsignor’s cassock. (The cassock is the black robe which is worn by servers and priests.) A monsignor wears a cassock with fuscia-colored buttons and a fuscia sash around his waist. While I find all of this pretty embarrassing, I should look spiffy.
I am honored by all of this, but I still plan to call myself “Fr. Tom.”
