Your Excellency, Archbishop Raimondi, my brother bishops and priest, my brethren among the clergy from the many churches in Atlanta, beloved religious, distinguished representatives of the State and the city, dear members of my family and my friends:

May I express my thanks to Archbishop Raimondi, the Apostolic Delegate, who represents the Holy Father at this ceremony, and who has been so characteristically gracious. Through him may I express my heartfelt gratitude to our Holy Father, Pope Paul VI, and my pledge to his Holiness that I shall strive to be worthy of his trust. I offer to the Holy Father my own unswerving loyalty, my filial devotion, and my utmost cooperation.

May I also at this time indicate my deep appreciation to all of the clergy and laity who are here today, especially those whose presence has involved a sacrifice of time and travel.

This is not the occasion for extended discourse on my part but perhaps I may be permitted a few moments of personal reflection.

This day marks for me a beginning -- I should say another beginning. For each of us life has many beginnings, no one of which is completely new. Time and place are far less significant than persons. Yet in the providence of God, now is the time, Atlanta is the place, and the people of this area, members of my flock, and those who are not -- are the ones whom I am to serve if I am truly to serve God. I will not say then that I feel at home today, I am at home. I am greatly honored and profoundly humbled by this new office and I am eager to share with you the dreams, the hopes, the burdens and the trials that constitute our common responsibility.

I come to Atlanta as its second Archbishop at a time in history when the tide of change is running strong; its swift current shaking an old order of ideas, ideals, structures, institutions and customs.

I come to Atlanta at a time in our national life when confusion and uncertainty grip many as they see our country seared by violence, unreason, destruction, inequality, injustice. Bewildered, they wait for emerging patterns and directions.

I come to Atlanta at a time too when the people of God, on man’s journey in His Church, are pledged to renewal. We are searching out ways of proving her meaningfulness to men now and for the future.

The challenge of all this to any man, mortal and limited, is obvious. In assuming this new position of greater responsibility in all these areas, I am not without the realization of the challenge or the deep rooted feeling of being unequal to the task. Alone I could do nothing. I need God, and I need you -- all of you.

There are three basic considerations which offer reason for hope and courage as we consider our shared responsibility. The first of these considerations is the recollection of the words of another archbishop, John Ireland, who guided the Catholic community in St. Paul in the last half of the nineteenth century. On one occasion he said: “I seek no backward voyage across the sea of time. I will ever press forward. I believe that God intends the present to be better than the past, and the future to be better than the present.” This is a conviction I share with John Ireland.

The second consideration is a review of the history of this part of our country. Once Georgia was the outer frontier of colonial America. Then, as now, it witnessed to a boundless vitality. There is in this land a dynamic energy for life, for recovery, for growth. Once it was devastated as an army marched to the sea. Atlanta itself was burned to the ground but hardly had the embers sputtered and died when life began to emerge.

In a few short years, Atlanta became the capitol of the state and today, less than one hundred years later; it is the largest metropolitan area in the southeast. Growing by unbelievable strides, Atlanta is a center for culture, industry, transportation, finance, commerce. In over twenty-five years the population has doubled. The potential for life and growth is reflected as well in the Church here.

Atlanta became a diocese in 1956. In six years it came to the status of an archdiocese. Since its establishment its Catholic population has more than doubled. Where there exists such significant signs of life, all is promise, all is future, all is hope, especially to one as myself, charged with the responsibility to bring this life to maturity, to marshal its forces in the service of God and humanity as we turn a critical corner of history.

The last consideration is the inspired and vigorous leadership of my predecessor, your first archbishop, Paul Hallinan. I know how much he was attuned to the needs of the time. His words were a clarion call that was widely heard. I cannot claim to speak with his voice but I can at least share his concerns. His apostolate, you recall, had its roots in the Eucharist. What better point at which to begin to work a change in men and society; what better source to dwell on when one would attempt to renew the face of the earth. The Eucharist is life-giving bread. It is a sign of unity and community in the Church. Those who feed on the Eucharist are nourished by the death and resurrection of the Lord till he comes. Those who feed on the Eucharist proclaim a kinship which transcends the accidentals of time, race, color and status. At the same time they submit to a transformation that purifies a man of the overgrowth of his pride, prejudice, envy, jealousy, hatred. Archbishop Hallinan understood these truths so he made the liturgy a central concern.

The very first completed work of the Second Vatican Council was the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy and perhaps this was not accidental. For the priority of the liturgy in the council’s work is more than temporal -- it is essential. When we speak of the liturgy we refer not only to signs and symbols, not simply to rites and rituals, but to what is ideally both a communal expression of corporate and personal commitment as well as a profound source of spiritual renewal. “The liturgy is the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed, at the same time it is the fountain from which all her power flows.”

When the Second Vatican Council referred to liturgical reform it instructed pastors to work for change with zeal and patience. Liturgical change of such magnitude and such historical significance would necessarily involve fashion and feeling, custom and conviction, practice and principle. The combination is unusual but one that is required in working for any significant change in any order on any level. The words must be clearly understood.

For zeal is not an excuse for unjustified violence. Nor is it to be equated with uniformed and sporadic enthusiasm. Zeal is not a flicker or a flash but it is a flame and one that burns intensely, a flame that is constant and endures. And patience, patience is no mask for inaction or weakness; it is not a fatalistic acceptance of injustice. Patience is not merely a deed or the action of a day. Patience is a dedication, a devotion. It is a persistent adherence that does not ignore the human condition. It is understanding that is not excessively permissive. Zeal and patience are the offspring of love and we shall need them in any problem we face, any challenge we meet, any ideal we try to realize.

Ours is surely a small world. The events that take place in any part of it do not leave us untouched here, and with our effective means of communication, the time lapse between distant cause and local consequence grows ever less. To be effected by the powerful forces that are presently operative is hardly a matter of choice, it is a matter of fact. In that sense involvement is no longer an option but the nature of involvement, the position that we take, is an option which allows us at least this comfort and this hope. If we can be acted upon we can also act. If we can be led, we can also lead, and if we are subject to influences from without, so can we give an example that reaches far and wide.

I know of the efforts that so many have made here in Atlanta, the programs that have been initiated and those that are planned. I hope to share in that continuing effort in the future. The endeavor to meet and to alleviate social ills will bring together, as it already has, many men of good will and among them, quite naturally there will be representative members of the clergy. That association is bound to be fruitful in itself and can contribute in a very real way towards mutual understanding among various religious leaders.

Let us pray then for each other and may I ask each one of you to pray for me that by the grace of God I may possess the inspiration, the strength, the zeal, the patience for all the days and all the years when we shall work and strive and live together.

I am installed as your archbishop on the Feast of the Lady of Mt. Carmel. As the Blessed Mother is the patron of the archdiocese, so shall she be my patron as I strive to serve His Son among you. May I close then with the communion prayer of the Mass of the Lady of Mt. Carmel -

“Most worthy Queen of the world - Mary ever Virgin - you brought forth Christ the Lord - the Savoir of all men - Intercede for our peace and salvation.”