Every year, Supreme Court justices and others in the legal profession gather at a Catholic cathedral in Washington, D.C., before the start of their new term to observe Red Mass, but this year, safety concerns prevented the justices from attending.
Before the Mass, officers found 41-year-old Louis Geri in a camping tent he’d set up on the steps of St. Matthew’s Cathedral at 6 a.m. on Sunday with “suspicious items,” The Washington Post reported.
The items included vials of liquid and possible fireworks. Officials sent arson investigators and a bomb unit to the scene. Geri had previously been barred from the Cathedral grounds, police said.
When asked to leave, Geri refused and was promptly arrested.
He has been charged on a preliminary basis with unlawful entry, threats to kidnap or injure and possession of a Molotov cocktail, police said.
The service was delayed for 20 minutes, until officials gave the hundreds of waiting attendees the all clear to enter through a side entrance, per the National Catholic Reporter. For security reasons, Supreme Court justices did not attend.
In years without threats, Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and many retired justices usually attend the Red Mass.
At the Mass, a cardinal called for an end to political violence
Washington Cardinal Robert McElroy spoke at Sunday’s service. He referenced the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and said the country has entered a period of fear.
“We have witnessed the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the assault on the Capitol. Both mark the progression from civil dialogue to uncivil dialogue to force and fear,” he said.
Following the “collapse” of Americans’ faith in government branches, many have a “corrosive instinct to attack every major institution,” McElroy said.
But “men and women of the law are architects of hope by reason of their vocation,” he continued.
McElroy urged those practicing the law in attendance to be “true architects of hope” in their careers. “No group in our society has a greater capacity to remold our political discourse. No group has a deeper calling to bring hope,” he said.
What is a Red Mass?
The Red Mass is celebrated annually on the Sunday before the first Monday in October, marking the beginning of the Supreme Court’s annual term.
Its purpose is “to invoke God’s blessings on those responsible for the administration of justice as well as on all public officials,” according to the John Carroll Society.
The tradition comes from around the 13th century in Rome, Paris and London. Royal judges would attend the services wearing scarlet robes.
In England, starting in 1310, the bench and the bar would attend Red Mass together to mark the beginning of each court term. The clergy and the judges of the High Court all wore red robes.
“The liturgical red symbolizes a willingness to defend truth, inspired by the Holy Spirit,” according to the Thomas More Society of Galveston-Houston.
In the United States, the tradition started in New York City in 1928, and it spread to Washington, D.C., 2½ decades later.