CV NEWS FEED // The archbishop of New York and a Brooklyn-based priest who is friends with the president-elect are set to lead the invocation and benediction prayers in Washington, D.C., at the Jan. 20 inauguration of Donald Trump.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan confirmed in a recent interview with news outlet Pix 11 that Trump asked him to lead, as he had in 2017, the opening invocation prayer for the inauguration. In his response to Trump, the Cardinal quipped, “Well I did it eight years ago, I hope this one works.”
Trump’s inauguration for his second term will be held indoors, an unusual occurrence, due to the anticipated extreme winter temperatures.
The prayer tradition at presidential inaugurations began in 1937 with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who included Catholics to help lead prayer at all three of his inaugurations. Since then, Catholics have led prayers at most of these ceremonies.
Father Frank Mann, a retired priest also from New York, will lead the closing prayer. Fr. Mann told the Tablet, the newspaper for the Diocese of Brooklyn, in a Jan. 15 article that being asked to lead the prayer is “an indescribable honor.”
“It’s taken me longer than I thought to process having been chosen to be such a significant part of the inauguration’s moment in history,” Fr. Mann said.
He also shared with the Tablet the backstory of his friendship with Trump.
Several years ago while visiting a Queens cemetery, Fr. Mann encountered the gravesite of Trump’s parents and grandparents. Seeing that it had overgrowth on it, he returned later to restore it out of respect for the historic place. After this, Fr. Mann sent a picture of the restored and decorated gravesite to President Trump.
A few weeks later, Trump called Fr. Mann, asking why he decorated the gravesite. Upon the priest’s explanation, Trump “sounded amazed,” the Tablet reported, and he invited Fr. Mann to meet with him.
“He was the nicest, down-to-earth guy,” Fr. Mann told the outlet. “There are no airs about him. He has a great sense of humor. He’s a regular guy.”
In their respective interviews, Cardinal Dolan and Fr. Mann each spoke about how Trump’s surviving two assassination attempts in 2024 may have spiritually affected him.
“I believe that faith is stirring,” Cardinal Dolan said at the time. “I believe that he may have had a bit of a rekindling. Alleluia, because I don’t know how anyone could be president of the United States without a deep faith.”
Fr. Mann told the Tablet, “I think he sees the hand of God in all this.”