New Boston archbishop challenges flock to develop ‘deeply personal’ relationship with God

Boston, Mass., Oct 31, 2024 / 19:00 pm

Newly installed Boston Archbishop Richard Henning challenged people of the archdiocese Thursday to commit to a relationship with God even when it hurts, saying that’s what God does for them.

“He gives us the precious gift, the gift of his own heart: his Son,” Henning said Oct. 31 during a packed two-hour-plus installation Mass at Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

Henning, 60, originally from Long Island, New York, and most recently bishop of Providence, Rhode Island, replaced Cardinal Seán O’Malley, who had led the Archdiocese of Boston since 2003.

As the 10th bishop and sixth archbishop of Boston, he is the first head of the diocese to come from New York, which he noted often leads to a question.

Ever since he was announced as Boston’s next archbishop in August, Henning said, “people have been asking me about me — all kinds of questions, about my opinions, my personality traits, and history. The most common question I’ve received in the last few months boils down to something like this: ‘Have you ever been, and are you now, or will you ever be, a Red Sox fan?’”

The congregants laughed. Then Henning added: “Now, while that may be a very important question here in Boston, along with all those other ones, it seems to me that the most important thing that you, the people of this archdiocese, need to know about me is that I believe.”

Earlier, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, presented Henning with his letter of appointment from Pope Francis, and, following tradition, Henning walked around the cathedral displaying it to the congregants.

Archbishop Richard Henning shows the letter of his appointment to the congregation during his Oct. 31, 2024, installation Mass at Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross. Credit: Andrzej Skonieczny

After that, O’Malley and Pierre escorted Henning to the bishop’s chair to the left of the altar, which he sat in, thus taking formal possession of the archdiocese, which is one of four created in 1808.

O’Malley, who widely steadied the archdiocese after the disastrous departure of Cardinal Bernard Law, received a standing ovation at the beginning of the Mass after being praised by Pierre. He got another one near the end of Mass, when Henning told O’Malley he detected “mixed feelings” among Catholics in Boston at the changing of the guard “because of the magnitude of your ministry.”

New spiritual father

The procession of several hundred priests into the cathedral was more joyful than solemn. Outside, to the right of the main entrance, musicians from the Neocatechumenal Way sang rousing songs of praise, backed by eight guitars, a ukulele, two bongos, and a shofar, the ram’s horn used in Jewish religious ceremonies. As priests neared the music, many smiled and some sang along as they made their way up the steps into the building.

Sean Gibney, 47, of Burlington, Massachusetts, who coordinated the group, acknowledged that it’s an unusual way to welcome a new archbishop.

“Now it is. But it wasn’t always. It was always the people who welcomed their shepherd,” Gibney told CNA, noting that in the early Church people chose bishops by acclamation.

“So we find it a totally normal thing. He’s a shepherd, because we’re sheep,” Gibney said, referring to Henning. “We feel in a way that the faith demands that we have to go and welcome. He’s sent in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

David Enrique, 24, of East Boston, who sang and played guitar, was asked what the installation of Henning means to him and why he came.

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“For me, we have a new father,” Enrique said. “Cardinal Seán has been our father for the last 21 years, and I came to welcome my new father — my new spiritual father and our shepherd.”

God is love

Acknowledging the presence of many cultures within the archdiocese, the first reading was in Spanish, with the second reading in Haitian Creole. Prayers of the Faithful were in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, and Vietnamese.

About half the cathedral was occupied by priests in white vestments, a turnout that Henning said “overwhelmed” him. Some, he noted, were from his home diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island, with many from the Archdiocese of Boston.

Archbishop Richard Henning by the altar during his Oct. 31, 2024, installation Mass at Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross. Credit: Andrzej Skonieczny

After the chanting of the Gospel reading from John 17, Henning spoke for 21 minutes, with no notes.

He challenged listeners to develop a “deeply personal” relationship with God, a relationship, he noted, that comes with demands on both sides.

“God is love, and God summons us to love. And not in a ’70s love song kind of love,” Henning said. “This is a love that sweats and bleeds and dies.”

Using Pope Francis’ image of the Catholic Church as a “field hospital,” Henning expanded on the visual, saying: “But there’s only one doctor in the field hospital, and that is Jesus Christ. The rest of us are patients in need of healing.”

Right ordering is necessary for a fruitful relationship with God, he said.

“Whenever human beings think they are gods, everyone else has to be slaves,” Henning said. “This God makes us free.”

He quoted Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi dissident, about what Bonhoeffer called “the cost of discipleship.”

“Faith is not just a list of beliefs. It’s not just a feeling. It’s a whole life,” Henning said.

When O’Malley took over the archdiocese in 2003, the see was vacant, because Law had resigned in disgrace in December 2002, 11 months after the archdiocese’s priest sex abuse scandal exploded.

About a dozen protesters held signs outside the cathedral before Thursday’s Mass, criticizing both archbishops and the Church over priest sex abuse.

Henning acknowledged continuing pain.

“This Church of Boston, it is in a very real sense a wounded Church, because of a failure to act compassionately — the sins against the innocent,” Henning said.

He noted that the Church has made efforts “to protect the vulnerable” in recent decades.

“But still we feel the weight of those wounds,” Henning said. “And we owe a debt of gratitude to victim-survivors who tell their stories, for they help to protect new generations by their courage.”