Perhaps no public figure's arrival has been as much anticipated - or needed - as that of Sean Patrick O'Malley, who will become the new Archbishop of the Boston Archdiocese, per order of Pope John Paul II. There is a new head on the local branch of our Church, replacing placeholder Bishop Richard Lennon, and succeeding Cardinal Bernard Law.

O'Malley brings with him exciting credentials. He has dealt with some deplorable instances of sexual abuse before, helping to clean up the mess left by James Porter in Fall River a decade ago, and more recently in Florida, where he sought to control some of the damage done by two bishops who admitted to molesting children.

Bishop O'Malley also has important characteristics that should serve him well. Boston's ethnically-diverse Roman Catholic community is a far cry from its predominantly Irish makeup of a century ago. To that end, O'Malley, an Irish American, has led the Catholic Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C., and served as vicar for the Hispanic, Portuguese and Haitian communities.

But he faces challenges unlike those that any American cleric has faced before. When Bernard Law arrived as new leader of Boston's Church in 1984, his first act was to tour fire-gutted St. Ambrose church and promise to rebuild the building.

O'Malley arrives and faces a Church damaged far more badly, not by sparks and heat, but by deception and disregard for the weakest members of the flock. Schools are closing on them, services and ministries to them are being eliminated, the money going to settle lawsuits and salve the psychological wounds of the sex abuse victims and pay their lawyers.

Maybe worst of all, there is a sense of distrust and detachment on the part of the laity, who embrace their faith but recoil from the atrocities committed by those who proclaimed themselves its stewards.

These are the challenges&endash;the duties&endash;facing the new Archbishop O'Malley, whose very arrival signals a new era in the Catholic Church in Boston - and maybe everywhere.

He will arrive wearing the robes of the Franciscan friars, an order founded during the Dark Ages, when the Roman Catholic Church was corrupt, its doctrine dictated by land deals and coffer-filching pontiffs. Francis of Assisi petitioned the Vatican for permission to start a new order, one which would help bring about the rebirth of the Church as it emerged from the Dark Ages.

Today, says Father Nick Ciccone of St. Margaret's, there is a statue of St. Francis in Rome, facing St. John's, the cathedral of the Roman Archdiocese. Francis is facing the church, his arms outstretched. And if you stand behind the statue and look up, it appears as if St. Francis is holding up the walls of the church.

Let's hope Archbishop O'Malley can show the same strength and purpose here in Boston.