But for all the pageantry, Cardinal Tobin is inheriting a troubled archdiocese. The archbishop he succeeded, John J. Myers, was denounced for the archdiocese’s handling of pedophile priests and for allocating more than $500,000 for an addition to his weekend house in Hunterdon County, N.J. The Star-Ledger of Newark hailed Archbishop Myers’s retirement last summer with an editorial that declared, “Blessed are we to be rid of this man.”

Cardinal Tobin, 64, took a vow of poverty when he was ordained nearly 40 years ago, and his unassuming ways proved popular in Indiana. Like Pope Francis, who at first drove himself around the Vatican in a Renault with 190,000 miles on the odometer, Cardinal Tobin drove his own sport-utility vehicle as he crisscrossed Indiana.

By contrast, Archbishop Myers often used younger priests as drivers and traveled with a police escort. (Cardinal Tobin did get driven recently from Newark to a religious retreat on the Jersey Shore, a spokesman for the Newark archdiocese said.)

In Indiana, Cardinal Tobin exuded modesty and humility. To the bench-press crowd at the gym, he was simply Joe; to schoolchildren, he was Padre José. Archbishop Myers preferred to be addressed by the formal title Your Grace.

And when the Newark appointment was announced, then-Archbishop Tobin sounded stunned. “Sometimes I think that Pope Francis sees a lot more in me than I see in myself,” he said.

Cardinal Tobin made national headlines in 2015 when he faced off against Gov. Mike Pence, now the Vice President-elect. Citing security concerns, Mr. Pence had ordered a stop to efforts to resettle Syrian refugees. Calling that immoral and illegal, Cardinal Tobin said that the Indianapolis archdiocese would continue to welcome Syrians. A federal court has since overturned Mr. Pence’s order.