Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori made his first visit to the Minnesota State Fair on Aug. 28, 2026, sampling local fair foods and returning two days later to concelebrate an outdoor Mass, according to The Catholic Spirit. The visit brought the Maryland archbishop to the annual 12-day event, known as the Great Minnesota Get-Together, after encouragement from a local native working in church administration.
The Invitation and First Impressions
Archbishop Lori attended the fair at the urging of Jenny Kraska, executive director of the Maryland Catholic Conference, which represents the Archdiocese of Baltimore alongside two neighboring dioceses, according to The Catholic Spirit. Kraska grew up in Prior Lake, Minnesota, and attended St. Michael Catholic School. Having experienced the fair, she persuaded the archbishop to make the trip.
“She told me that I had to come to the Minnesota State Fair or otherwise my life would not be complete,” Archbishop Lori said, according to The Catholic Spirit. “I believed her, so here I am. I spent the whole day Friday at the Fair and enjoyed myself tremendously.”
During his opening visit on Aug. 28—a day that drew an all-time single-day attendance record of 204,065 visitors—the archbishop toured the grounds and sampled classic fair cuisine, opting for a corn dog, a foot-long hot dog, and substantial amounts of ice cream, as reported by The Catholic Spirit. “I didn’t get anything with pickles; I’m sorry,” he remarked to The Catholic Spirit. “That kind of tells you I’m a foreigner.”
Minnesota Ties and State Fair Mass
The journey also bridged a personal connection to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Archbishop Lori previously crossed paths with the late Archbishop Harry Flynn—who led the local archdiocese from 1995 until 2008—when Flynn served as rector of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where Lori was a seminarian, according to The Catholic Spirit. Archbishop Lori later served as the homilist at Archbishop Flynn’s 2019 funeral Mass at the Cathedral of St. Paul.
Building on those ties, Archbishop Lori returned to the fairgrounds on Aug. 30, 2026, to concelebrate Mass alongside Father Robert Fitzpatrick, a retired priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis who has celebrated the fair Masses since 2014, according to The Catholic Spirit. The Mass gathered fairgoers, blending traditional liturgy with the bustling atmosphere of the state’s annual exhibition.
Attractions and Departure
Staying locally at The St. Paul Seminary during his visit, Archbishop Lori spent time exploring agricultural exhibits, highlighting the Miracle of Birth Center—where visitors view newborn calves, lambs, goats, and piglets—alongside sightings of Clydesdale horses, according to The Catholic Spirit. He lingered at the fairgrounds following the Aug. 30 Mass to enjoy additional food before flying back to Baltimore that evening.
“It’s so big and vibrant and it’s such a huge, long tradition,” Archbishop Lori said of the event, according to The Catholic Spirit. “It has a life of its own. I love that.”
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