BEFORE:
AFTER:
I read a post on Facebook that complained about the modern rite of Episcopal Ordinations as exemplified in the two photos above at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran. The second photo was this past Saturday Ordination of new auxiliary bishops of Rome.
As you can see, both are papal Episcopal Ordinations. The top one is the pre-Vatican II Form at the Bishop of Rome’s Cathedral, the Lateran. The second is the most recent one, thus the post-Vatican II form at the same Cathedral but with Pope Leo. Not sure who the pope is in the pre-Vatican II set-up.
The complaint is that the Litany of the Saints, where the candidates are prostrate on the floor, in the post-Vatican II Ordination Rite has them prostrating before the pope and his papal throne, whereas in the pre-Vatican II Ordination Rite, the candidates along with the pope go the the altar for this and the candidates are prostrate before the Altar, along with the pope, who kneels, signifying that the altar represents the true Head of the Church, Jesus Christ.
The flimsy rubrics of the Reformed Rite doesn’t make clear, evidently, that the prostration at any ordination, a deacon, priest or bishop, should take place before the altar.
Granted, the set-up in the Lateran is ancient, with the Bishop’s throne at the back of the apse and the altar in the transept of the Cathedral.
I’d love to see the full Ordination Rite in the pre-Vatican II set-up at this particular cathedral. I think a a chair would have be brought to the altar for the pope to do all of the rite of ordination there and not at the throne.
I do think, though, that at least for the Litany of the Saints with its prostration of the candidates should have been at the altar with a procession from the chair to the altar by the pope and then back to the chair for the rest of the ordination rite.
Preferably, all of the ordination rite should have been at the altar.
But the problem, again, are the flimsy rubrics of the modern Mass that allows for all kinds of adaptations.
But the prostration before the pope was not a good visual for an ordination rite. I am sure you will agree.
7 comments:
With Father McDonald's permission...
Then-Cardinal Ratzinger, 2000 A.D:
"At ordinations prostration comes from the awareness of our absolute incapacity, by our own powers, to take on the priestly mission of Jesus Christ, to speak with His "I".
"While the ordinands are lying on the ground, the whole congregation sings the Litany of the Saints."
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"I shall never forget lying on the ground at the time of my own priestly and episcopal ordination.
"When I was ordained bishop, my intense feeling of inadequacy, incapacity, in the face of the greatness of the task was even stronger than at my priestly ordination.
"The fact that the praying Church was calling upon all the saints, that the prayer of the Church really was enveloping and embracing me, was a wonderful consolation.
"In my incapacity, which had to be expressed in the bodily posture of prostration, this prayer, this presence of all the saints, of the living and the dead, was a wonderful strength — it was the only thing that could, as it were, lift me up.
"Only the presence of the saints with me made possible the path that lay before me."
Pax.
Mark Thomas
Worshipping Leo instead of our Lord. I can see when of our veteran posters approving that!
In the meantime, FSSP is flourishing, while Novus Ordo Orders are languishing:
https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2026/05/fssp-diaconal-ordinations.html#more
The Roche will be outraged!
Episcopal consecration
Enrico Dante received his episcopal nomination on August 28, 1962, by decision of Pope John XXIII. He was ordained bishop by the Pope himself in the Basilica of St. John Lateran on September 21, 1962. He was consecrated with Giovanni Battista Scapinelli di Leguigno from Brescia, Cesare Zebra from Castelnuovo Scrivia in Alexandria, Pietro Palazzini from Piobbico in Pesaro, Paul Philippe from Paris, and Beniamino Nardone from Gravina di Puglia in Bari.
Given the greater emphasis on the anthropocentric in the Novus Ordo vis a vis the pre-Vatican II rite, this is completely unsurprising. Who can forget the mania for removal of the tabernacle from the center of the sanctuary in favor of the enthronement of Man--uh, I mean prominent placement of the presider's chair--in Catholic Church architecture in the decades immediately following V2.
Nick
Yeah the optics are a little off here...in St Peters, the Pope sits at the altar so those being ordained prostrate themselves before the altar and the pope.
In the past has the pope knelt during the litany of the saints?
I don’t know about the Vetus Ordo, but during Eastertide, we stand for the Litany of the Saints but outside of Eastertide, we kneel.
Father McDonald,
This will make your evening bright. Have a glass of wine handy while you savor this new Church:
https://www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2026/05/new-church-architecture-st-john.html
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