With a broad smile and an appeal for the prayers of his fellow New Yorkers, Archbishop Dolan became Cardinal-designate Dolan Jan. 6, when Pope Benedict XVI announced a consistory elevating him and 21 other bishops to the College of Cardinals.

The pope announced the nominations to the faithful in St. Peter's Square at noon that day, before praying the Angelus.

Another New Yorker, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, the Bronx-born former New York priest and auxiliary bishop, also will be elevated at the consistory, to be held Feb. 18 in Rome. A third North American, Archbishop Thomas C. Collins of Toronto, also was named.

“I am honored, humbled and grateful,” said Cardinal-designate Dolan, calling the appointment “a gift” from the pope that was as much an honor to the Archdiocese of New York and its people as it was to him.

“It’s as if Pope Benedict is putting the red hat on top of the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty or…the spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral,” he said, speaking to reporters in the cathedral Friday morning after the appointment was announced in Rome.

He said the pope’s message to Catholics in the archdiocese was, “Thank you. Keep up the good work. You are a leader, an inspiration, to the Church and to the world.”

Cardinal-designate Dolan, 61, who also serves as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he personally accepts the honor of the cardinal appointment not as a privilege or a new title, but as a call to higher service to the Church and its people.

“I’ll try to do that,” he said, “but I’ll sure need your prayers.”

The cardinal-designate said he learned only 24 hours beforehand, in a phone call from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the papal nuncio to the United States, that he would be made a cardinal at the next consistory.

He said the first person he called was his mother, who lives in the family’s hometown of St. Louis. Her response, he quipped, was: “It’s about time!”

In another quip involving his hometown, the cardinal-designate said that as a boy he knew of only two great cardinals: One was the Archbishop of St. Louis, Cardinal Joseph Gibbons, and the other was the St. Louis Cardinals’ legendary batting champion Stan Musial.

Following his meeting with reporters at the cathedral, where he celebrated the 7:30 a.m. Mass, Cardinal-designate Dolan went across Fifth Avenue to Rockefeller Center, where he made a brief appearance on NBC’s “Today” show. There, hosts Matt Lauer and Al Roker presented him with a congratulatory St. Louis Cardinals pennant, recognizing the 2011 World Series winners.

Holding it up, the cardinal-designate said with a grin, “Champions of the world.”

In his remarks at the cathedral, Cardinal-designate Dolan also congratulated Cardinal-designate O’Brien, who was Archbishop of Baltimore until recently and now is pro-grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. He remains apostolic administrator of the Baltimore Archdiocese until the appointment of a successor.

Previously, Archbishop O’Brien served as Archbishop of the Military Services, U.S.A., for 10 years. In New York, his positions included rector of St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie, secretary to Cardinals Cooke and O’Connor, and archdiocesan director of communications, a post in which he was instrumental in founding Catholic New York. He was ordained a priest of the archdiocese in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1965; he also served as rector of the North American College in Rome, as did Cardinal-designate Dolan.

Cardinal-designate O’Brien, 72, was in Rome at the time of the consistory announcement, attending the episcopal ordination of Archbishop Charles Brown, another New York priest, who recently was named papal nuncio to Ireland. He heard his name being announced in St. Peter’s Square.

In a statement, Cardinal-designate O’Brien said he’s grateful to the pope for “his confidence in me” and pledged his continued support and love serving the “historic archdiocese” of Baltimore and the Church in the Holy Land as head of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.

With his latest appointments, Pope Benedict will have named more than 50 percent of the current cardinal electors, with the rest having been named by Blessed John Paul II.

The pope’s latest nominations included 16 Europeans, continuing a trend in his cardinal appointments since his election in 2005. Seven of the new appointments are Italians, which will bring that nation’s total of cardinal electors to 30 — or 24 percent — more than any other country.

Cardinal-designate Dolan’s elevation will make him the eighth Archbishop of New York to receive the red hat of a cardinal. During the consistory, he will be given the biretta (hat) and the cardinal’s ring; he also will be appointed the titular head of a church in Rome, as is traditional for cardinals.

A pilgrimage of New Yorkers will travel to Rome for the consistory, along with the cardinal-designate’s family members, friends and parishioners from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, where he served as archbishop from 2002 to 2009.

Cardinal-designate Dolan was ordained a priest of the St. Louis Archdiocese in 1976. He earned a doctorate in Church history from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He served a five-year term as secretary to the Apostolic Nuncio in Washington before his appointment to the North American College in Rome, where he served from 1994 until 2001. He was named an auxiliary bishop of St. Louis in 2001 by Pope John Paul II, and was appointed Milwaukee’s archbishop the following year.

He was appointed New York’s spiritual leader to succeed the retiring Cardinal Egan, who is now archbishop emeritus, and was installed in New York on April 15, 2009, at a Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Cardinal Egan, who was in Rome when the announcement came, issued a statement saying, “I extended to him my heartfelt congratulations and assured him of my prayers. This is wonderful news for the cardinal-designate and for the entire community of faith that he serves so well.”

The long-standing tradition of New York archbishops becoming cardinals began in 1875 with the elevation of Archbishop John McCloskey as the first American churchman to receive the honor. Since then, all but one New York archbishop, Michael Corrigan, has been a cardinal.

The Dolan appointment sets a precedent, however, in that both he and Cardinal Egan will have the red hat at the same time, and for at least six weeks—until Cardinal Egan turns 80—both will be eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope.

In his remarks the morning of the announcement, Cardinal-designate Dolan acknowledged that the responsibility of electing a pope is the “weightiest” duty of a cardinal.

“But I hope that doesn’t come for a long time,” he said, noting that Pope Benedict has served the Church well and is in good health at 84 years old.