I begin this week with some very exciting news.

As you may know, the Holy Father has appointed Fathers Arthur Kennedy and Peter Uglietto as auxiliary bishops for our archdiocese. Both are rectors of seminaries in our archdiocese — Bishop-elect Kennedy at St. John’s and Bishop-elect Uglietto at Blessed John XXIII National Seminary.

Bishops-elect Kennedy and Uglietto

I made a public announcement of this news at a press conference Wednesday at the Pastoral Center.

A large number of our staff and family and friends of the bishops-elect were on hand for the announcement

As I announced at the press conference, Bishop-elect Kennedy will remain as rector of St. John’s after the ordination, but Bishop-elect Uglietto will be leaving Blessed John to become bishop of our North Region. I am looking forward to Bishop-elect Kennedy’s continued service at St. John’s, and to working with Bishop-elect Uglietto in bringing the Good News to the people of our North Region.

Bishop-elect Uglietto was truly a “Good Shepherd” to Blessed John and will be sorely missed yet fondly remembered by all the seminarians, faculty, and staff there.

However, I am happy to say that Father William Palardy will succeed Bishop-elect Uglietto as rector. Father Palardy is currently the seminary’s academic dean.

Bishop-elect Uglietto and Father Palardy

The Holy Father has also accepted the resignation of Bishop Emilio Allué, one of our auxiliary bishops, for age reasons.

Bishop Allué was vicar to our Hispanic apostolate. He was ordained a bishop in 1996 and prior to working with our Hispanic communities was bishop of our Merrimack Region. However, he will still be around for confirmations and ministry to our Spanish communities. I wish to extend my gratitude for his many years of faithful service to the archdiocese and wish him well in his much deserved retirement.

Unfortunately, Bishop Allué was not able to be with us at the press conference this week because he was vacationing with his family in Spain. I had spoken to him by phone earlier to share the news and extend my gratitude to him.

Before the press conference, I met with Bishops-elect Kennedy and Uglietto in my office where I presented them with two of the symbols of the office of bishop: the zucchetto and pectoral cross.

The we discussed some plans for the events of the day.

After the press conference the new bishops-elect joined us for Mass and a lunch with with family and guests.

I am glad that so many of the relatives and friends of the bishops-elect were able to be with us for the announcement.

Bishop-elect Uglietto’s mother, Dolores

I think it is very significant that our Holy Father has chosen two rectors as bishops. The fact that we have two new bishops with a tremendous depth and breadth of experience in priestly formation will be a great help to our archdiocese as we work to deepen the ongoing formation of all our clergy. Over the course of the Year for Priests that just concluded, I consistently stressed the need for continuing theological formation, building a spirit of fraternity among our clergy, and a deepened commitment to a life of prayer. Both have worked tirelessly to further the culture of vocations in our archdiocese, and I have been so glad to be partners with them in this regard. Both have been marvelous assets to their seminaries.

Their seminaries are held in tremendous esteem not only by our own bishops here in Boston, but also by other bishops across the United States and around the world. Both seminaries are solid places of formation for not only our seminarians, but those of other dioceses as well. A wonderful spirit exists in both seminaries, which speaks to the talent and faithfulness of these fine new bishops. St. John’s will be enrolling 80 seminarians next year, and Blessed John continues to nurture the callings of seminarians after careers in other professions.

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Last Thursday, I met with our pro-life director, Marianne Luthin, and the directors of the pro-life offices of other New England dioceses.

Twice a year, the New England diocesan Pro Life/Respect Life directors come together at the Pastoral Center to discuss the work of their respective offices and share successful programming initiatives.

Representatives from the Dioceses of Portland, Manchester, Burlington, Fall River, Worcester, Bridgeport, Norwich and the Archdioceses of Hartford and Boston were there.

I was able to hear firsthand reports of a number of youth, educational and pastoral initiatives that are effectively communicating the Gospel of Life at the diocesan and parish levels. Earlier in the day the group had reviewed newly developed training and outreach materials from the USCCB Pro Life Secretariat on the Project Rachel post abortion healing program which is such an important pastoral outreach effort of the Church.

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That night, I went to Palio’s Italian Grill in Lexington to speak to our young adults at Theology on Tap. (I liked the name because it reminds me of the horse races in Siena, the Palio di Siena.)

The gathering was upstairs in the restaurant, so we were in “the upper room” — very theologically appropriate!

I addressed the crowd for about 45 minutes on the New Evangelization. Then we had about another 45 minutes of questions and answers.

We had a very good crowd that was mostly young adults. Father Arnold Coletti, pastor of St. Brigid’s and Sacred Heart Parishes in Lexington, was there as well.

Lauren Hardegen, of our young adult ministry office, and Billy Robinson, of the young adults group in Lexington, did a wonderful job organizing and promoting this.

The young adults gather every month out there for Theology on Tap.

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That evening, I went to Merrimack College in North Andover for a dinner with Father Bill Garland and the Augustinians. It was an opportunity to meet their new provincial, Father Mickey Genovese.

With Father Genovese

Father Garland is a good friend of mine. He worked with me as the superintendent of schools in Fall River when I was bishop there, and was also a superintendent of schools in New Hampshire. He was the principal of St. Peter’s in Cambridge. Now, he is at Merrimack.

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On Saturday, I said Mass for religious brothers of communities within our archdiocese who are celebrating 50 or 60 years of religious life.

We had several brothers join us for this occasion.

Sister Marian Batho, our delegate for religious, gave a lovely talk, which I would like to share with you:

Twelve religious brothers of the archdiocese celebrate anniversaries of entrance or religious profession in 2010. Collectively they represent 695 years of service to the Church. They are members of the Society of Jesus, Franciscan Friars, Xaverian Brothers, Marist Brothers of the Schools and the Sons of Mary.

The word Brother speaks of a special relational quality, a unique presence to others.

Religious Brothers welcome others as family. There are no strangers.

You have served the Church in the United States and throughout the world. You are teachers, administrators, catechists, formation and vocation directors, pastoral care ministers. You are fundraisers for the missions and have been part of reconciliation efforts after the genocide in Rwanda. You have provided food and care for the poorest among us. You have gone to places you may never have wanted to go. But you have made a difference everywhere you have been.

You are men of many talents. Wherever there was a need, you responded generously and faithfully without counting the cost.

All of your efforts and all of your accomplishments reflect your total gift of self to Christ. You are the human faces of a loving and compassionate God. You remind us of the importance of being holy and enthusiastic in our love for God.

We celebrate with you today and thank you for saying “yes” so many years ago.

Ad multos annos!

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That afternoon, we went to bless the new parish center at Holy Family in Amesbury. Father Conrad Salach is the pastor there.

We blessed the center first. It is a beautiful parish center that they just refurbished.

Afterwards, we had a parish Mass at 4 o’clock followed by a reception.

They had a cake for me because Tuesday was my birthday

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Then on Sunday I visited the Sisters of Jesus Crucified in Brockton for their Chapter Meeting and the celebration of Mass. The Sisters first came to Boston in 1945, at the invitation of Archbishop Richard Cushing, and among their many pastoral and spiritual works established what is now a 120 bed Catholic nursing home on their property.

At the Chapter, Sister Mary Valleire was re-elected Superior of the Community and three Counselors were elected to assist her. It was a blessing to be with the Sisters and experience their joy and enthusiasm for ministry.

Sister Mary

At the lunch after Mass they presented me a birthday cake, which featured a question mark candle — I’m not sure if they didn’t know my age or they thought it was too high to use the number!

The Sisters are an important presence in the archdiocese and we are very grateful for their ministry.

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After that, I remained in Brockton for a celebration marking the Nativity of St. John the Baptist with the Cape Verdean community there. The celebration was held at St. Edith Stein Parish.

This picture is of a wall of fancy loaves of bread with different shapes, and fruits and sweets called a “mastro”. The people line up and they beat a drum. When the drum stops, everyone runs and grabs some. You might think of it as a Cape Verdean version of a piñata.

They also have a dancing procession called a Colá São João

There were probably about 2,000 Cape Verdeans there. There were also a couple of young Cape Verdean priests: Father Egidio, who is helping us out and Father Lino, a Capuchin visiting from Cape Verde. There was also an Oblate, Father Doran, and of course Fathers Brian Smith and Brian Flynn.

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On Monday, we had the incardination of Father Alonso Macias. It was very nice celebration.

They were supposed to do it at the parish Mass but there were so many people that I suggested they get another priest to celebrate the parish Mass and we hold our Mass separately, in Spanish.

It was lovely. People sang and they were all very happy. There were a lot of people from Cambridge, but from other places as well.

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The Massachusetts State Council Knights of Columbus came to visit me Tuesday to present a $60,000 donation for our food pantries.

State Deputy Mike Baldner, his wife Kathy, Immediate Past State Deputy Bill Donovan, and Joseph Donnelly, Chairman of the Massachusetts Knights’ Food for Families Project

As I always say, the Knights are such a great asset to our Church and this gift is just another example of their many good works.

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Tuesday also marked the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, and we were very happy to have Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Methodios and his assistant, Father Ted Barbas, join us for Mass at the Pastoral Center.

Here in Boston we have a tradition of exchanging delegations with the Greek Orthodox on each other’s Patronal Feast Days. The Metropolitan, or his representative, comes to be with us on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul and I go there on St. Andrew’s day, November 30. This mirrors a similar exchange begun years ago by the Holy Father and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

We all pray that the unity between our churches that had existed for the first 1,000 years of our Christian heritage will be restored. We have so much in common.

During my homily, I spoke about a wonderful ecumenical pilgrimage we went on in 2007. There were about 100 priests and laity, Catholic and Orthodox, who met with the Holy Father in Rome and the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople.

The Church of St. Paul Outside the Walls

While we were in Rome together, we were able to visit the tombs of Sts. Peter and Paul. While we were gathered at St. Paul’s tomb, a Benedictine abbot brought out the chains of St. Paul from his imprisonment.

The abbot read to us from a letter by St. John Chrysostom, one of the Greek fathers of the Church, in which he expresses his desire to go to Rome to be able to venerate the chains of St. Paul. There we were, Catholics and Orthodox, venerating this wonderful relic of the glorious Apostle to the Gentiles.

We have very fond memories of this pilgrimage.

Metropolitan Methodios made some remarks as well.

Metropolitan Methodios  is certainly a very dear friend of the Catholic community and we are very grateful to Vito Nicastro and Father Ed O’Flaherty, of our Office for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, for all of their wonderful work on behalf of ecumenism. We were joined by our own archimandrite — who did not wear his veil but was there — Father Jack Ahern, of Dorchester, as well as Father Frank Cloherty from Brockton.

Vito Nicastro and Father Ed O’Flaherty speaking with the Metropolitan

Afterward we had a pleasant lunch together

May you all have a safe, restful and happy Independence Day!

Cardinal Seán