William E. Lori

Archbishop William Lori has spent nearly fifty years as a priest, and when he talks about what has meant the most, he does not point to the appointments or the committees. He points to the quiet moments: a confession, a deathbed, a couple who came to him carrying something heavy. Those, he says, are where he has felt the Lord working through him, and they are still what gets him up in the morning. "It's not about power," he once put it. "The people of God is not a concept. The people of God are people."

Warm and unhurried, he is happiest down among his flock rather than standing out in front. After Mass he is often the last to leave, standing for as long as it takes to greet everyone who wants a word. He does not pretend to be a natural at it. He laughs that he is no politician and cannot always match a name to a face, and he apologizes for Spanish he insists is worse than everyone tells him. But he keeps standing there anyway, because meeting people is the part of the work he loves most.

He has a way of ending up where he never planned to be. He came to the priesthood from Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Francis and Margaret Lori, and was ordained for the Archdiocese of Washington in 1977, sure he was headed for a quiet life of teaching. Instead a cardinal borrowed him as a secretary for six months and kept him for the better part of eighteen years. He assumed some senior priest would be made a bishop before him, and was surprised when the call came for him instead. He figured someone else would be sent to Baltimore, the first diocese ever established in the country, and it went to him, a place he now says has simply become his home. Along the way he helped the American bishops write their charter for protecting children, and for two decades he has served as Supreme Chaplain of the Knights of Columbus, watching over the spiritual life of more than a million men and their families.

For all the weight those roles carry, the man underneath stays plainly himself. He calls his mother every single day. He walks his golden retriever, Bayley, through Bolton Hill, reads fat biographies of Churchill, doodles the way he has since grade school, and quietly mourns the loss of Turner Classic Movies from his cable lineup. He would rather eat a quiet dinner at home than anywhere else. And when he walks his four or five miles, he prays the rosary as he goes, clearing his head and turning things over. It fits the way he has always understood the work. Evangelization, he likes to say, is not a program but the Church falling in love again, and after nearly half a century he still sounds like a man glad to be along for it.