ROME
Wisconsin Rapids Tribune
by Marco della Cava, USA TODAY
ROME – Applause is not what you commonly hear at a solemn Catholic Mass. And yet there it was, clear as the blue sky overhead.
The 100-odd parishioners packed inside Santa Maria della Vittoria, a gleaming jewel box of a Baroque edifice near this city’s central train station, directed their clapping Sunday toward U.S. Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, who had come to say Mass at his titular church. Every cardinal has a titular church in Rome designated to him where he preaches when he’s in town.
The gesture was in response to an introduction by Father Rocco Visca, who in Italian had said, “May this be your last visit here as cardinal, and may we be the first church you visit as the next pope.”
Seated nearby, O’Malley, 68, allowed himself the briefest of smiles.
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