Sunday, March 13, 2016
WE TEND TO THINK THAT PRE-VATICAN II PAPAL LITURGICAL EVENTS WERE MORE REVERENT THAN THOSE TODAY. THINK AGAIN!
Italians today are much more organized than they once were. This video is a treasure trove in terms of Italians surrounding an Italian pope making them look like the Keystone Cops. I think Rome does it better today especially with the Italian Monsignor Guido Marino!
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The crowd in the square is well-dressed and well-behaved, and they fall to their knees for the papal blessing. A far cry from the baseball-cap-wearing, flag-waving rabble you see nowadays.
The loggia is inevitably crowded and the large microphone rather obtrusive; yet Pius looks, well, pontifical (unlike his dress-down modern counterpart).
Pacelli was elected on 2 March (his 63rd birthday) and crowned ten days later. Three days afterwards Hitler's troops marched into Czechoslovakia in violation of the Munich agreement, and a new world war was inevitable. Pius would have been acutely aware of the international situation and that he would, like Benedict XV, have to be a wartime pope.
All British newsreel commentators spoke in that peculiar way, right up until the 1960s!
Yes, the square is filled with mostly Italians who knew that when they went out in public they were to dress appropriately. My Italian mother had that sense until she died four years ago at age 93. She never went anywhere unless appropriately dressed--no such thing as a casual look on the street unless it was a summer casual event and even then her casual look was dressy never sloppy.
There is a very popular game show in the USA that has been on in one form or another since the 1950's. It is The Price is Right. It was reincarnated around 1972. There are videos of the first shows and all the contestants in the audience are dressed up because they knew they would be on national TV. That same show is going strong today, but the contestants all wear tee shirts, jeans, shorts and flip flops or other casual wear. I find it off-putting because of what my Italian mother instilled in me by way of example and my Canadian father too!
So what is the point about the Keystone cops?
The Keystone Cops wore proper custodian helmets.
I think it is much more reverent because the people fell to their knees for a blessing in the square and on the cobblestones. You'd never get most people people to kneel like that these days - not even during Mass for the consecration on kneelers or carpet ...
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