MORE BOMBSHELL PICTURES OF TODAY'S CONSISTORY!
The Holy Father Emeritus looks good! Emeritushood is agreeing with His Holiness. Please note that neither kisses the other's ring or hand!
And, oh well and oh my although the rumor was Benedict smoked like a chimney:
21 comments:
Maybe I shall wear my Cardinalatial Red socks today in honor of their emminences!
Why does Francis insist on wearing that mitre withe the ugly brown stripe? It doesn't go with anything. But I guess we should be grateful he isn't wearing clam diggers and a Harry Belafonte shirt......yet.
That miter isn't my favorite either, its not bad but it just isn't papal looking. He's worn others that are similar but a tiny bit more ornate.
But rumor has it and many believe this to be true, but when Msgr. Marini was preparing Pope Francis for his first Mass in the Sistine Chapel, that Msgr. Marini showed him all the miters that were available for him to wear in the sacristy. It is reported that Pope Francis said to Msgr. Marini that one of the miters was missing. Marini looked at him and asked "which one?" And Pope Francis said, "MINE!" And thus you have it.
About kissing the hand. According to his last interview book, Pope Benedict never liked the custom of kissing the Pope's hand and tried to have it discontinued when he became Pope. People insisted on it anyway.
I agree the brown stripes make it look like a remnent of the 1970s ... as outdated as a Ford Pinto. He should get a simple white one. It would look much better.
Francis' refusal to wear choir dress is not only off putting but a little, odd I guess is the word. Does anybody know what the aversion to this normal form of episcopal vesture is all about? If he thinks choir dress is to regal I would argue wearing a floor length cape (cope), a mitre and a crozier is more "regal". To me it is just another instance, one of many, of Francis imposing his own personal preference on everything. It's not right. The papacy doesn't belong to him, it's not about him, yet everything he is not comfortable with is discarded. To me that's a kind if arrogance for one who should be humble.
I wondered how Pope Francis could avoid wearing choir dress, which he has taken against for some reason. Now we know. By the way, if the singing appeared to have miraculously improved, this is because the Westminster Cathedral choir, the best of its kind in the world, is singing at St Peter's this weekend.
Unfortunately in the official video you can hardly hear them, thanks to the unbelievable incompetence of the sound engineers; a situation which has persisted for some time, and which no-one seems to want to address. In fact, the televisual coverage of papal ceremonies in Rome is quite abysmal on a number of levels.
John, how do we know (why he doesn't wear choir dress of any kind, although Blessed John Paul II did not wear all that Benedict did)?
I thought it interesting that Pope Benedict was in his long coat because I am sure he would have worn choir dress, but knows Pope Francis doesn't so it would look odd for the emeritus to look more papal that the true pope, or is he? cue the twilight zone music!
There is nothing off-putting or odd about Pope Francis' choice to wear an alb instead of choir dress. To expect this pope, who eschews the trappings of a regal papacy to revert suddenly to damask, silk, brocade, etc, is unrealistic.
The alb is a liturgical garb. Until the middle of the twelfth century the alb was the vestment which all clerics wore when exercising their functions.
Beyond a certain enlargement or contraction as to lateral dimensions, no great change has taken place in the shape of the alb since the ninth century. In the Middle Ages the vestment seems to have been made to fit pretty closely around the waist, but it broadened out below so that the lower edge, in some cases, measured as much as five yards, or more, in circumference. No doubt in practice it was pleated and made to hang tolerably close to the figure. Towards the end of the sixteenth century again, when voluminous garments were everywhere in vogue, St. Charles Borromeo prescribed a circumference of over seven yards for the bottom of the alb. But his regulation, though approved, cannot be said to make a law for the Church at large. (Seven YARDS!)
We don't know why he doesn't wear choir dress. What I meant was, we now know what he did to avoid wearing it (i.e. turned up in cope and mitre). He had no objection to wearing it as a bishop and cardinal. Having refused to wear it on his first appearance, he has severely restricted his options. There are many occasions on which all clergy need to be in choir dress.
JP II, like his predecessors, wore rochet and mozzetta (although he liked these to be plain). The correct dress for a pope emeritus would be, I assume, papal choir dress without the papal stole.
Dear Peter Ignotus,
I just asked why the pope refuses to wear a form of dress that is the current practice of prelates. The vesture of prelates was modified after Vatican II by Pope Paul in the late sixties to be in line with the wishes of Vatican II. So why not follow those established directives of his predecessor? I didn't ask, nor do I need a history of liturgical gesture. Indeed I pretty certain I know more than you, but that is not my point. My question is that Francis clearly does not like it, but why? Why does Francis impose so rigidly all of his personal likes and dislikes on everything. It would have been a nice gesture to traditional Catholics if he wore choir dress and would have cost him nothing. And would help to sooth some raw nerves. After all he went out of his way to reach out to a bunch of Pentecostals by making a video (and referred to a Protestant as a brother bishop, but I digress). He will not extend the hand to traditional Catholics but will to everyone else, that is what is really off putting. In fact Francis goes out of his way to name call us which is beneath the dignity of any Christian but totally unacceptable for a Pope.
The consistory wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I am just watching the rerun on EWTN. I guess the next pope will be the one to get rid of the cardinal's red and the titular assignments. But what a shame to see discarded all the magnificent Catholic vesture, etiquette, and symbolism. And what replaced it, nothing. Now we have a Church full of jean wearing, slovenly bishops. And silly lay people who like to play priest on the weekends. Oh well it is God's Church so I'm going for a walk.
How nice it was to see the new cardinal from Haiti wearing a beautiful rochet. From Haiti the poorest of countries showed respect for tradition, for the dignity of the office. It's not about fashion, it's about Tradition/tradition and giving our best for God. It has always been the poor who give with gladness to make our churches another heaven on earth. And it has been the rich who say that art, stained glass windows, beautiful vestments etc are contrary to the Gospel. What nonsense. Go to Beverly Hills, CA to the church of the Good Shephard. It is one of the most boring and plain churches you will ever see. Go to downtown Detroit, North Philadelphia, and any poor section of town across the country and you will find glorious churches. All built by the poor for God. They never thought beauty was against the Gospel. Why do liberals hate beauty in church architecture, music, vestments and liturgy? I don't know the answer but I do know that all the greatest saints lived in rags but demanded the best for the liturgy of the Church. Boy have times changed.
Anonymous - The vesture of cardinals is tradition, not Tradition. There is a world of difference.
To say that the rich disdain art insults all those wealthy men and women who have given millions - nay, hundreds of millions of dollars to build or refurbish churches, to install pipe organs, to provide beautiful vesture for the liturgy.
Not only that, but the wealthy support schools, fund missionary work around the globe, and pay for the continuing work of the Church through organizations like the Catholic Extension Society. They give from their wealth to provide scholarships for poor students, to immunize children in third world countries, and to build up the Kingdom of God.
You say it is "not about fashion," but you jump on the oh-so fashionable bandwagon of poo-pooing the inestimable contributions of the wealthy, all in an effort to justify your own callous cynicism.
Times haven't changed - it's just that different people populate the stage.
Someone hit a nerve with Ignotus. He seems all knotted up. That's a pun. And I believe Anoynmous 1 said Tradition/tradition. You glaringly ignored that point which of course shows your reasoning is flawed and just an ad hominem attack. Which of course mine is also. But I have read Ignotus' condescension about everybody's opinions that it's kind of fun to see someone finally hit a nerve. Don't be so sensitive Ignotus lighten up you old modernist. 1970 ain't coming back. Francis will retire soon and Cardinal Scola will be pope like the Holy Spirit wanted. That's a joke, lighten up ladies........and gents.
Anonymous 99 (I am a big Get Smart fan, if you didn't get it)
PI, the alb is most certainly a liturgical garment. But the conferring of the red hat is not a liturgical act, yet the Pope chose to vest as if for Vespers. Papal choir dress does not have to involve damask, silk or brocade (damask is only a type of weave, and Francis has worn damask chasubles). A plain linen rochet and a crimson woollen mozzetta would suffice (crimson to distinguish it from the scarlet of cardinals and the purple of bishops. "I'm the pope, so I'll dress how I like" is not an attitude indicative of humility.
Benedict's presence should not have come as a surprise; he was there to hear the Westminster Cathedral choir which so impressed him on his British visit in 2010. He was also impressed by the Westminster Abbey choir and invited them to sing in St Peter's on the Feast of SS Peter and Paul, no less.
I find it amazing how many words are expended on the subject of what the Pope (or any cleric for that matter) wears! he was not inappropriately dressed and behaved in a dignified manner - perhaps more attention should be paid to the words he spoke - therein, rather than in his dress, the Gospel is heard - and that is what the Church is for!
A Priest of the Church
Why have so many words been expended on the subject of what the Holy Father was wearing? Surely more attention should be paid to the words he spoke in his homily - it was there that Gospel was being preached and illuminated, rather than in the niceties of liturgical vestments. He was not dressed inappropriately, he presided with a natural and prayerful dignity - so leave him alone and remember WE HAVE ENTERED AN ERA OF NEW EVANGELISATION - not an ecclesiastical version of a Paris catwalk!
For his last consistories Pope Benedict explicitly chose NOT to wear cope and mitre BECAUSE he wanted the consistory to _not_ be considered a liturgical act, a designation which he felt it was not worthy of. It's something of a para-liturgy.
A cope and mitre is always fabulously more formal, solemn, and explicitly liturgical than choir dress. Choir dress is never liturgical. It is a middle ground between street wear and sacred vestments when the former would be too casual and the latter would be too formal or inappropriate.
That is why bishops not concelebrating wear choir dress, to make it blindingly obvious that they are not concelebrating on the one hand, and not working in an office on the other hand.
I think it's funny that some would like to minimize the appearance of choir dress in a fit of "omg its so fancy and stuff;" if their logic was sound then they would want to eliminate chasubles, mitres and albs before choir dress. Sacred vestments are the ancient dress of rich Roman men; choir dress is, for the most part, modified street dress from about about a thousand years ago (except the rochet).
"WE HAVE ENTERED AN ERA OF NEW EVANGELISATION".
I don't see much evidence of this. At what point precisely did we enter this New Age?
The New Evangelization is the old humanism, best I can tell,
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