Sean Baker has a vested interest in the installation of New York’s newest archbishop.
His firm has once again been called upon to provide the ceremonial garb of the area’s top religious figure — a tradition that has spanned more than two decades.
“This is about Timothy Dolan, not me,” said Baker, who spent yesterday in the city making final preparations for the changing of the archdiocese guard.
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The firm, Patrick Baker & Sons of Fairfield, Conn., has provided the vestments for Cardinals John O’Connor and Edward Egan.
It imports the robes from Holland-based manufacturer Stadelmaier, a company that makes vestments the pope wears on visits abroad.
But Baker’s responsibilities go beyond supplying the robes.
His firm also was charged with placing Dolan’s new coat of arms on the cathedra — the archbishop’s chair — at St. Patrick’s and affixing the coat of arms on six candles to be used in today’s ceremony.
Baker considers it an honor to do the work he does, but strives to stay out of the spotlight.
His company was started in 1965 by his father, Patrick, an Irish immigrant, as a candle-supply company. It used to have a store in Manhattan before it was closed.
The two Connecticut stores have a showroom where the clergy can pick their garb. They can also buy them online.
Patrick, 83, isn’t active in the business, but the company still provides religious supplies to churches in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Washington, DC.
It sells everything from communion hosts and wine to stationery to candles and countless other religious items.
The store supplied vestments for Pope John Paul II’s visit to New York in 1995.
It also supplied 200 chasubles, or formal robes, adorned with the crest of the Archdiocese of New York, that archdiocese priests wore when Pope Benedict XVI visited the Big Apple last April.
Because it has a lengthy relationship with the archdiocese, Baker said the store was a natural choice to provide materials for Benedict’s visit and Dolan’s installation.