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Just as Pope Francis is spending the first anniversary of his pontificate on retreat, Catholics should remember to mark in prayer the significant occasion of the successor to St. Peter, Cardinal Dolan said.
“Pope Francis said to us after he was elected, ‘You know what moves me is that from this day on, every Catholic in the world at every Mass is going to pray for ‘Francis, our Pope,’ and, he said, ‘that gives me a lot of consolation.’”
Cardinal Dolan recalled the sentiment as he briefed reporters at a press conference following the 7 a.m. Mass he and Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville offered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral March 13, a year to the day the pope was elected.
Cardinal Dolan, as a member of the College of Cardinals, participated in the conclave in which Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected the 266th pope of the Church.
Recalling how Cardinal Dolan has referred to Pope Francis as “the universal pastor,” Archbishop Kurtz said at the press conference that in some respects “our Holy Father has taken the world by storm—not just our Church. He’s, in a sense, the pastor for all of us.”
Archbishop Kurtz succeeded Cardinal Dolan as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops last November as the cardinal concluded his three-year term.
Both Cardinal Dolan and Archbishop Kurtz were amazed at how quickly the year had passed since Pope Francis was elected following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.
Cardinal Dolan described his participation in the conclave as “a life-forming experience.”
“To this very day, things will come back to me, or I’ll think, ‘Oh, remember.’ It’s like a mine that you can dig into to get nuggets for sermons or when you’re talking to people,” he said.
Archbishop Kurtz was the homilist at the liturgy. “In a special way, we thank Cardinal Dolan and all the cardinals who, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, just one year ago today elected Pope Francis as our Holy Father to lead our Church…
“We say ‘thank you’ today for the great gift of Pope Francis,” Archbishop Kurtz said. “We say ‘Ad Multos Annos.’ But we also say, ‘Pope Francis, thank you for leading us to our Lord Jesus Christ.’”
In the briefing with reporters, Cardinal Dolan reflected on the meaning behind the name Cardinal Bergoglio chose in Pope Francis.
“When he took the name Francis, the College of Cardinals was shocked,” Cardinal Dolan recalled. “Nobody’s ever taken the name Francis.
“But then, all of a sudden, you saw everybody smiling in the Sistine Chapel because it seemed so natural and so obvious.”
The normative experience in the life of St. Francis, continued the Cardinal, “was when Jesus spoke to him from the cross and said, ‘Francis, rebuild my Church.’
“And Pope Francis is doing that,” Cardinal Dolan said.
While the Archdiocese of New York is restoring St. Patrick’s Cathedral, “a little icon or a symbol of the Church with a small ‘c,’” Cardinal Dolan said, Pope Francis wants to restore “the Church with a capital ‘C.’”
It is customary for the pontiff to spend the first full week of Lent on retreat, Cardinal Dolan said. Pope Francis’ March 9-14 retreat was with officials from the Roman Curia in Ariccia, outside Rome.
“There’s a special joy and fervor to our Mass this morning in the middle of our Lenten somberness, as the entire Church pauses to celebrate the first anniversary of the election of our beloved Pope Francis,” Cardinal Dolan said at the beginning of the Mass.
The concluding blessing also honored Pope Francis.
“As we ask for God’s blessing, certainly we ask a special blessing on the successor of St. Peter,” Cardinal Dolan said.
The cardinal also asked for God’s blessing on behalf of those who perished and those who were injured in the March 12 explosion in East Harlem, as well as for their families and for the first responders who aided in the aftermath.
