Monday, January 12, 2009

rich it is

As rumored yesterday, the next Bishop of the Diocese of Knoxville was introduced at a press conference this morning. Bishop-elect Richard Stika is moving to Tennessee from a parish in St. Louis where one of his parishioners is Stan "The Man" Musial.

Three local television stations covered the event. WBIR and WVLT each sent a cameraman. WATE also sent reporter Kristyn Caddell who remembered me from our recent encounter with the Christmas penguin.



I also saw reporters from the News Sentinel and the Farragut Press. After breaking the news at 6 o'clock this morning, the Catholic blog Whispers in the Loggia linked to a profile of the Bishop-elect from the St. Louis Beacon.

The best photos of the press conference will probably be the ones taken by Deacon Patrick Murphy-Racey. He also had the best position for his video camera. I hope to see his work on either the Diocese website or his own site. I couldn't find any of his pictures tonight.

Many of the priests of the Diocese were in attendance as well as the Bishops of Nashville and Memphis. Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz was warmly received by his former staff. It was his first time back to the chancery since his elevation to Archbishop.

I introduced myself to Fr. John Dowling of St. John Neumann parish and asked him the question I had about his new building and the Bishop's cathedra. Fr. Dowling said that yes, the Bishop could theoretically choose to move his chair to another building, thereby making it the new cathedral. However, Fr. Dowling is not pushing for that. He agreed that the Bishop would probably want to leave the cathedral right where it is, next door to the chancery, which has seen some improvements since Archbishop Kurtz left for Louisville. I also asked Fr. Dowling about the mosaic Stations of the Cross in his new church. He bought those from a clearing house in Atlanta that sells fixtures from closed churches in other parts of the country. Because he had those first, he was able to design the width of the windows so that the Stations would fit perfectly underneath them.

I found it interesting that the Bishop-elect has had to keep the news of his appointment a secret since December 16. And that he is allowed say Mass in Aramaic when celebrating with the Maronite Church.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Frank Murphy said...

Whispers in the Loggia embedded some of Patrick Murphy-Racey's videos tonight. The videos are from the Diocese of Knoxville site. There's also a video on the News Sentinel site. Look for me in the background at 1:44 and 3:04.

1/14/2009  

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