Reds on Film

For your multimedia pleasure, from the first new cardinalatial see the US has known since 1967 -- when Pope Paul VI called Archbishop Patrick O'Boyle of Washington to the Sacred College -- fullvideo is up of Cardinal-designate Dan DiNardo's noontime press conference earlier today in H-Town...

...and, from here in Foleydelphia, a chat in two parts (one...two) with the nation's second Roman "lifer" ever to be dealt a red hat, the fourth native of the River City ever named a prince of the church, Cardinal-designate John Foley.

For the curious as to his appearance, the beloved hometown goober and self-described "chocoholic" (shown at left in his new regalia as Grand Master of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre) spent the last two days undergoing eye surgery... but, ever impishly, showed up at the back of St Peter's Square as his name was being read out.

"I didn't get back in time to be there at the beginning of the audience and I didn't have my glad rags on," meaning his formal clerical dress, so he said he just snuck inconspicuously into the middle of the crowd.

He told Catholic News Service he never expected to be the second new cardinal listed after the senior Vatican prefect, Cardinal-designate Leonardo Sandri.

When the pope "started the list there I was No. 2 on the list and that was a surprise," Cardinal-designate Foley said.

He said a pilgrim standing next to him asked him if he knew any of the men the pope had just named to be cardinal.

"I said 'Yes, I know quite a few of them.' And I said 'I am one of them,' Well, I don't think he believed me," he said laughing.

"What would I be doing standing out in the middle of St. Peter's Square, you know. But I thought it would be nice to hear the announcement anyway," he said happily....

In June, when he left his communications job, Cardinal-designate Foley told Catholic News Service he hoped he had accomplished two primary goals: "First, that the church recognize the importance of the media for communicating the good news of Jesus Christ"; and second, that church leaders understand "the communications media are not threats, but opportunities."

He has said he loved being able to merge his love for God and the media.

"In my work as a priest and as an archbishop, I am able to do two things I love very much: to be active in communications and to tell people about Jesus," he said in May 6 commencement address to students at the University of Portland, Ore.

Don't begrudge the Eminence -- he's earned every last bit of this.

On a related note, it's been announced that the cardinal-to-be's local Mass of Thanksgiving has been scheduled for Thursday, 13 December in the Cathedral-Basilica of Ss. Peter and Paul. Foley will celebrate... and Pharaoh will preach.

PHOTO 1: Nick de la Torre/Houston Chronicle

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