"You Bring the Best Outta Me, And I'll Bring the Best Outta You" – In Albany, Post-Hubbard 101

Up the Hudson from Gotham, in the capital church of the Empire State, there are middle aged pastors who, all their lives, have only ever known, walked with, lived and served under one bishop....

That is, until today.

On the flip-side, meanwhile, for the one tasked with following the longest episcopal reign modern American Catholicism is ever likely to know – a titanic 37-year tenure in the chair first held by the nation's founding cardinal – expectations were naturally just as high that this Opening Day would make a splash... and in his maiden turn before the crowd in Albany, Bishop Ed Scharfenberger did just that.

As starts go, it was, in a word, impressive – deeply so. (And while we're at it, an unusually live mic that let the principal consecrator's animated off-script commentary make the rounds deserves a very grateful honorable mention.)

The talk beginning with the beloved last Nuncio's famous first words to many of his appointees, here's something no one's been able to say since 1977 – Church, meet the new bishop of Albany:



More to come.

PHOTO: Skip Dickstein/Albany Times-Union

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