Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan gave the sermon Monday at the Blessing of the Rt. Rev. Edmund F. McCaffrey, OSB, as the fourth Abbey-Ordinary of Belmont Abbey.

In a ceremony straight out of the middle ages and hardly to be seen again in the Belmont, N.C. area, 11 Catholic archbishops and bishops together with 17 Benedictine abbots, assisted the pope’s delegate to the U.S. in the Solemn Abbatial Blessing.

In the Belmont Abbey Cathedral, hundreds of monsignori, priests and religious, together with invited Protestant clergy, and the laity, witnessed the Most Reverend Luigi Raimondi, the apostolic delegate to the United States, assisted by the Right Reverend Walter A. Coggin, O.S.B., resigned Abbot-Ordinary of Belmont Abbey, and the Right Reverend Baldwin Dworschak, O.S.B., abbot of St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota, when he conferred the Solemn Abbatial Blessing on Abbot Edmund.

To celebrate this gothic and baroque liturgy, there were two archbishops, ten bishops and 17 abbots, from every section of the country, New Hampshire to Colorado, from Minnesota to Florida, and the Bahamas, both Benedictine and Cistercian, and Trappist Abbots.

Archbishop Donnellan is Metropolitan of the Atlanta Province, which includes the dioceses of Atlanta, Savannah, Charleston, Raleigh, and the Belmont Abbey Nullius.

Abbot Edmund was born in Savannah, GA, on January 9, 1933, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph E. McCaffrey of Georgetown, S.C.

Belmont Abbey Nullius, situated in Gaston County, North Carolina is the smallest diocese in the United States, covering 827 acres and is one mile from the town of Belmont.

The overwhelming majority of abbeys and other religious houses throughout the Catholic world are located within a diocesan territory. But a few Benedictine Abbeys and one each belonging to the Cistercians, the Basilians, and the Canons Regular, possess a special dignity and a territory that does not form part of any diocese.

These are called “Abbeys Nullius,” that is “Abbeys of no diocese.” Over such a territory of Abbot Nullius, also called Abbot-Ordinary, exercises full episcopal jurisdiction.

Certain Abbots Nullius receive episcopal consecration, while others do not. But in the matter of ruling their territory they have the same jurisdiction that the bishop would have, if the territory formed part of a diocese. Only two Abbeys Nullius are located in North America -- Belmont Abbey in North Carolina and Saint Peter Abbey in Muenster, Saskatchewan, Canada.