ST. LOUIS — With empty streets and flags planted where people usually crowd in, this Inauguration Day looked unlike any of the ones former U.S. Rep. Lacy Clay had ever seen before.
"It was pretty eerie because you are used to an entire mall being full of people and just to see it with just the flags and a sparse crowd who were socially distant, was very different," Clay said.
Clay has been to four presidential inaugurations — Carter's, one Bush ceremony, and both Obama events — but he said this one has a special mission.
"The works begin today. To heal our country, to address the COVID-19 virus, and to restore our economy," Clay said.
As a leader of the Senate Rules Committee, Missouri Senator Roy Blunt spoke on the inauguration stage, echoing Clay's sentiment.
"This is not a moment of division. It is a moment of unification," Blunt, a Republican, said.
Biden is only the second Catholic to hold presidential office, and Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski says his messaging will look familiar to many worshippers in deeply Catholic St. Louis.
"For us as Catholics, I think really we strive for unity, and at this point in our nation's history, unity is such an important ideal and goal for us," Rozanski said.
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