Enthronement

For Quebec City it was a great day. Flags and bunting had been hung from public buildings and churches; prominent among the decorations were the yellow and white colors of the papacy and nostalgic fleurs-de-lis. Bells of 27 Roman Catholic churches pealed a welcome. From behind grey clouds the sun burst forth, as the car bearing the tall, 42-year-old archbishop-designate, the Most Rev. Maurice Roy, drove through the crowded streets. Women pushed to the car's side, held up their children for a blessing. Msgr. Roy had arrived for his consecration as the eleventh archbishop of the Dominion's oldest diocese.

At the archiepiscopal palace on the city heights, the new archbishop took his vows before the Quebec Metropolitan Chapter. Then, changing from robes of violet to robes of white, he proceeded to the nearby Basilica of Notre Dame (the same church in which he had been baptised, confirmed, and ordained) for the ritual of enthronement. With all the solemnity that bespeaks the age-old traditions of the Church, the Apostolic Delegate, Monsignor Ildebrando Antoniutti, bestowed upon him the crosier, symbolic of his office, then led him to the archiepiscopal throne.

Suspended from the ceiling of the basilica, high above the Archbishop's head, were the red hats of his four immediate predecessors as archbishop of Quebec, the late Cardinals Taschereau, Begin, Rouleau and Villeneuve. Quebeckers felt sure that some day soon their new archbishop would receive the red hat himself.

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