crozier bearer

I've been given a job recently that gives the title "crozier bearer" a whole new meaning! A crozier bearer is typically he who is in charge of a bishop's crozier during Mass or another ceremony, carrying, giving, and receiving it as the bishop needs it.

The Archdiocese's archivist, Fr. Dale, recently asked me if I would polish Bishop William George McCloskey's crozier (4th bishop of Louisville from 1868-1909) so that Archbishop Kurtz could use it for his Installation Mass on Aug 15. I'm honored to do it. I'll post pics of the "restoration" when I take 'em. It really is a beautiful thing. I had to leave a note with the housekeeper though so she wouldn't be alarmed by seeing a 7-foot bishops crozier in my room!

The Archdiocese's history page mentions him:

One of Spalding's successors as bishop of Louisville was the authoritarian William George McCloskey. In his forty-year reign, McCloskey attended to institutional growth but was frequently at the center of disputes — some glaringly public — with clergy, laity, and religious.

I like the following excerpt from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

He had a splendid physique and was a man of talent and cultured taste. He had a strong will, and held tenaciously to any view or plan of action that he had once entered on. Of strong Christian faith, of exemplary priestly life, he was especially charitable to the very poor and to the unfortunate classes of society. He will never be forgotten by the unfortunate magdalens of the House of the Good Shepherd at Louisville. Every Sunday, unless stormy weather prevented, he visited, instructed and consoled them, listening to each one's tale of woe and showing to this class that charity of which Christ set the Divine example. He wrote a life of St. Mary Magdalen (Louisville, 1900). His love for the poor, whom he visited in their homes even in his old age, and to whom he gave whatever money he owned, so that he died a poor man, illuminated the city in which he wielded the crosier with force and mercy for almost half a century. He was beloved by all who knew him.