The Saint's Day, Holy

So the word from The St Pat's Steps goes, the Tenth Archbishop's First Parade was the expected smash -- Irish walking stick, papal crozier, ring-kissing firemen and all....

That said, lest anyone thought the day's comprised little more than the march, Tim Dolan has used his first patronal feast at the helm of the New York church to issue his first pastoral letter, Keeping the Lord's Day Holy, its focus on Sunday Mass attendance (the national adherence to which currently stands at roughly a quarter of 68 million American Catholics).

The text of the letter appeared on Dolan's blog just past midafternoon.

Stay tuned for whatever video the house can scrounge up.

SVILUPPO: And here, your snapshot of history: for the first time ever, two archbishops of New York -- Dolan and his biretta-ed predecessor, Cardinal Edward Egan) -- reviewing the march before the House That Hughes Built.

The Gotham parade dating to 1762, its tradition of marching past the city's bishop began under the Big Apple's first resident prelate, the Dominican John Connolly, who took office in 1814.

On a related note, the Patrician thread in the life of the New York church is such that at its 1908 centenary as a diocese, then-Archbishop John Farley deferred his presidency of the rites to the successor of St Patrick -- the Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Michael Logue of Armagh.

Surveying the scene today in an interview with WNBC (video still to come), the tenth archbishop said "this is all pretty new and exciting and dramatic for me -- I'm used to six pick-up trucks and me in Milwaukee; you know, there aren't many Irish in Milwaukee."

PHOTO: Loggiarazzi(1); AP(2)

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