Sentiment-filled journey

High-tech entrepreneurs, car dealers, investment bankers, and veteran priests. All are among the more than 500 exuberant Massachusetts pilgrims going to Rome for next Friday's elevation of Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley to the office of cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

Some are traveling in organized tour groups, some in small groups of friends, some with family on a pilgrimage that contrasts sharply with the last occasion on which Bay State residents made such a trip: for the elevation in 1985 of Cardinal Bernard F. Law. There is much less now: less spending by the archdiocese, less celebration, less pomp.

What there is in abundance, the pilgrims say, is hope that the appointment will strengthen O'Malley's hand in rebuilding the archdiocese after the damage done by the clergy sexual abuse scandal and the closing of numerous parishes.

''It is not totally a great time to celebrate," said Scot Landry, 36, a high-tech entrepreneur who is going to Rome with six friends from Legatus, a group of Catholic business people dedicated to fostering Christian humane values in the workplace. ''That's why Archbishop Sean is downplaying it."

Unlike the time of Law's elevation, when about 1,000 people made the trip, there are no specially invited guests of the archdiocese, no charter flights or tours sponsored by the archdiocese. Only two people will accompany O'Malley when he departs this afternoon.

But the men and women who have organized themselves to go during the next few days say that the archdiocese has welcomed them and assisted them in obtaining, at no charge, tickets to the major events of the week.

The archbishop realizes that his appointment is a good thing for the archdiocese, said Landry, who organized the recent Boston Catholic Men's Conference at which O'Malley was keynote speaker, ''but he doesn't want to say that in a way that would indicate we don't still have problems to overcome."

Differences in the observances of Law's elevation and O'Malley's reflect not only the changed circumstances of the church in Boston following the clergy sexual abuse scandal, pilgrims say, but also profound differences in the two men.

''O'Malley is such a humble man -- he is a monk, no question," said Monseigneur Ronald A. Tosti of Christ the King Parish in Mashpee, who organized a group of 39 pilgrims from Mashpee and Fall River, where O'Malley was bishop from August 1992 to September 2002. ''I know him very well, and it is going to be very difficult for him to come out as a prince of the church, in pomp and circumstance. This is not his style.

''He did not want a big pilgrimage and following," Tosti said, ''but he was grateful that his friends in Fall River want to be part of it."

O'Malley's friend in the State House will be going along, but his friend in City Hall will not.

Governor Mitt Romney will leave for Rome Thursday and return Saturday night, according to spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom, while Mayor Thomas M. Menino ''does not have plans to go at this time," according to his spokesman, Seth Gitell.

Gitell would not comment on a report that Menino had intended to go but changed his mind because he was unhappy with O'Malley's firm stand against Catholic Charities placing some children for adoption by gay couples. Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco publicly declared this week that he would not attend the elevation to cardinal of that city's archbishop because of the church's position on adoptions by gays.

Also prominent among dignitaries planning to attend is Metropolitan Methodios, who will become the first head of the Greek Orthodox Church in New England to be present at the elevation of a Boston cardinal. Methodios was invited to Rome when Law became a cardinal but said he was unable to attend.

Foremost among the events to which the archdiocese is helping pilgrims gain admission are the Consistory Mass next Friday in Pope Paul VI Hall, at which O'Malley and 14 other new cardinals will receive their scarlet skullcaps and hats of office, the Mass of the Rings next Saturday in St. Peter's Basilica, at which they will receive rings symbolizing their roles as successors to the apostles, and a Mass to be celebrated by O'Malley the following day at the Pontifical North American College.

In addition, pilgrims from the Diocese of Fall River are sponsoring a luncheon, and Massachusetts members of the Order of Malta, a lay order dedicated to helping the sick in which O'Malley serves as a chaplain, will hold a reception.

The enthusiastic pilgrimage participation of Order of Malta members, organizers of the Boston Catholic men's and women's conferences, and advocates of the Alpha program to draw nonpracticing Christians into the church, suggests that O'Malley has quietly begun efforts on a broad scale to rebuild the church in Boston by emphasizing basics of the faith.

James F. O'Connor, an investment banker from Wellesley and leader of the order in New England, said the 250 knights and dames of Malta in New England are highly supportive of O'Malley. A 50-person tour the order arranged for the Rome trip sold out in 48 hours, O'Connor said.

Though it has been little publicized, O'Malley ''is enormously supportive of the Order of Malta," O'Connor said. ''He goes out of his way to participate in key events." He noted that O'Malley took part in the order's annual pilgrimage with the sick to Lourdes last year and spoke two years ago at the American Association of the Order of Malta annual dinner in New York. O'Malley's personal coat-of-arms is overlaid on a Maltese cross.

Mary O'Dea of Taunton, who is still active on the Diocese of Fall River antiabortion committee to which O'Malley appointed her in the 1990s, said, ''I came to know and love him in Fall River. My continued prayers are with him. I am fortunate and thankful that my friend is being made a cardinal and I'm going. He is a very holy, humble man."

Robert Cerundolo, owner of Hillcrest Chevrolet of Salem, is traveling to Rome with two friends from a Cape Ann prayer group in which he is active.

Cerundolo applauds O'Malley for deciding to keep open his church, St. Margaret Parish in Beverly Farms, after an initial decision was made to close it as part of the archdiocesan reconfiguration of recent years.

But Cerundolo is equally enthusiastic about O'Malley's recent endorsement of Alpha, an introduction to Christian spirituality.

This, Cerundolo said, showed that O'Malley shared prayer group participants' concern to draw back people ''who have fallen away from the church or who are in the pews but don't know why they are there."