ROME – Although he said he would continue to wear his brown Capuchin habit most of the time, the archbishop of Boston did go to a tailor for a final fitting of his new red cassock three days before he was set to become a cardinal.
Cardinal-designate Sean P. O'Malley told Boston reporters that he told the tailor, "I could always wear it if I was called to be on a hunting expedition with the vice president," Dick Cheney. "It's very red."
The cardinal met with his hometown media March 21 at Rome's North American College. He was scheduled to make his first public appearance dressed in red March 24 when Pope Benedict XVI was to induct him into the College of Cardinals.
The Boston prelate was asked if being a cardinal would mean he would be given so many assignments as a member of Vatican congregations and councils that he would be spending much of his time outside Boston.
"I'm hoping the Holy Father will understand that Boston needs to be the principal focus of my ministry and that it's a huge archdiocese with many challenges," he told the reporters.
His predecessor, Cardinal Bernard F. Law, now archpriest of Rome's Basilica of St. Mary Major, was expected to participate in the March 23-25 events surrounding the creation of new cardinals. But Cardinal-designate O'Malley told the Boston media he was not in frequent contact with Cardinal Law, not even regarding the ongoing pastoral and financial problems in the archdiocese or the sex abuse scandal that led Cardinal Law to resign.
"I haven't had too much opportunity to discuss those problems with him, not since his leaving Massachusetts," he said.
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