What an Authentic Mandate Looks Like

Msgr. Arthur Holquin, S.T.L.

Jul 08, 2026

Yesterday, in the upper church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, before some 2,500 of the faithful, Cardinal Robert McElroy ordained two new auxiliary bishops for the Archdiocese of Washington — Gary R. Studniewski and Robert P. Boxie III. The nearly three-hour bilingual liturgy was, quite simply, splendid, and I commend the whole of it to your prayerful viewing.

There is much here to rejoice over. Bishop Studniewski, a native of Toledo ordained for the Archdiocese in 1995, comes to the episcopate after a distinguished career as a chaplain in the United States Army, where he rose to the rank of colonel before serving as a parish pastor here in Washington. Those years accompanying our men and women in uniform — in the field, in the hospital, at the bedside and the graveside — are their own long apprenticeship in the shepherd’s heart, and one senses the fittingness of his chosen motto: “My grace is enough for you.”

And at forty-five, Bishop Boxie becomes the youngest bishop in the United States — and he now stands as one of only two active African American Catholic bishops in the country, one of a mere five Black bishops overall. That a son of Lake Charles, by way of Vanderbilt, Harvard Law, and the chaplaincy at Howard University, should be called to the fullness of Holy Orders is a grace for the whole Church, and a fitting continuation of Washington’s long tradition of Black episcopal leadership.

Cardinal McElroy gave the homily the lovely title “The Joys of a Bishop,” and preached, tenderly, on the truth that even now — when the burdens of the office seem magnified on every side — the episcopate remains at its root a share in the love and the joy of Christ himself: “that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete.”

And now, watch closely. [46:00] — just after the hymn to the Holy Spirit and before the homily — the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, rose and read aloud the mandate of the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, appointing each man to the Order of Bishops. The people gave their assent; the bond with the Successor of Peter was made visible and audible for all to see. As both men walk through the People of God, holding aloft the Papal Mandate with the papal seal affixed to it (bulla), the assembly gives their rousing assent!

This is what an authentic papal mandate looks like. Not the counterfeit we witnessed one week earlier, on July 1, in Écône, Switzerland, where four men were consecrated bishops with no mandate read — because none existed — and indeed against the express will of the Holy Father. The very moment you are watching here is precisely the moment that was missing there. Its absence is not a technicality; it is the whole of the matter. To consecrate a bishop without the pontifical mandate is, under canon 1387, to incur ipso facto the excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See — as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith duly declared on July 2.

Communion with Peter is not the decoration on the rite. It is the rite’s very heart. Yesterday in Washington, that heart was beating, joyfully, in full view. May the Lord grant Bishops Studniewski and Boxie many fruitful years — and may He bring home, in His own time, those who have wandered from the fold.

Monsignor Arthur Holquin, S.T.L.