Category: The Pope

A lot of folks have been wondering who precisely is involved in the upcoming conclave–apart from the cardinal electors themselves, that is.

Well, a good test of that is who will be required to swear the oath of secrecy concerning the conclave. The Vatican Information Service recently released a list of the folks who’ll be required to do that. Here ’tis:

• The Secretary of the College of Cardinals.
• The master of the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff.
• The masters of pontifical ceremonies.
• The religious who supervise the pontifical sacristy.
• The ecclesiastic chosen by the cardinal dean to help him in his duties.
• The religious charged with hearing confessions in the various languages.
• Doctors and nurses.
• The personnel for preparing meals and cleaning.
• Technical service personnel (Universi Dominici gregis, paras. 5 and 51).
• Personnel responsible for transporting the cardinal electors from the ‘Domus Sanctae Marthae’ to the Apostolic Palace.
• Elevator attendants at the Apostolic Palace.
• Priests admitted as assistants to some of the Cardinals.

So there you have it! Those are the folks who’ll be involved!

A lot of folks have been wondering who precisely is involved in the upcoming conclave–apart from the cardinal electors themselves, that is.

Well, a good test of that is who will be required to swear the oath of secrecy concerning the conclave. The Vatican Information Service recently released a list of the folks who’ll be required to do that. Here ’tis:

• The Secretary of the College of Cardinals.
• The master of the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff.
• The masters of pontifical ceremonies.
• The religious who supervise the pontifical sacristy.
• The ecclesiastic chosen by the cardinal dean to help him in his duties.
• The religious charged with hearing confessions in the various languages.
• Doctors and nurses.
• The personnel for preparing meals and cleaning.
• Technical service personnel (Universi Dominici gregis, paras. 5 and 51).
• Personnel responsible for transporting the cardinal electors from the ‘Domus Sanctae Marthae’ to the Apostolic Palace.
• Elevator attendants at the Apostolic Palace.
• Priests admitted as assistants to some of the Cardinals.

So there you have it! Those are the folks who’ll be involved!

After the new pope is elected among the first things they will do (not the first thing) is get him suited up in papal clothing and then usher him out on the balcony of the Vatican Basilica so he can appear to the waiting people and give the apostolic blessing Urbi et Orbi.

I’ve been wondering: How do they know what size clothes to use for the new pope?

Do that have a bulky, one-size-fits all set of clothes?

Do they call in an emergency tailor?

Do they have several sizes standing by?

Turns out it’s the latter.

The tailor who makes the clothes (Filippo Gammarelli) delivers a small, medium, and large set before the conclave begins.

GET THE STORY.

John Allen, Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, lays out some of the reasons why an American pope would be unlikely:

"The fundamental impediment to an American papacy, however, is that the Vatican prizes its diplomatic independence far too seriously to elevate a superpower pope. The ‘Holy See’ is a sovereign entity that exchanges ambassadors with 174 nations and international organizations. Regardless of what that pope himself thought or felt, many people around the world would be tempted to see his decisions as somehow skewed by virtue of his citizenship. That would be especially ominous in the Middle East; it would be difficult for many people not to conclude that the pope’s policies are influenced by virtue of his nationality, no matter what he did. It would probably also be the end of Vatican attempts to improve things for Christian communities in Cuba, Vietnam, China, and across the Islamic world."

Interestingly enough, though, Allen does think that there might be an American who would be a good bet for the papabile list, if only he weren’t American:

"Having said that, is there an American cardinal who might be a formidable candidate if not for his nationality?

"The quick answer is ‘yes’: Cardinal Francis George of Chicago. George, who spent years in Rome as the superior of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, knows the inner world of the Vatican, and yet he is not a creature of it. He also speaks Italian with ease. He’s led a complex archdiocese for years, and by most accounts handled it rather well. One indication of the esteem in which he’s held is that he is widely sought after as a guest speaker at Vatican events, a distinction that few cardinals enjoy. George is by universal consensus the intellectual leader among the Americans, someone who devours two newspapers and a theological work before breakfast."

Well, even if Cardinal George is not tapped for Rome, it is good to know that Chicago is in good hands. By the way, Allen’s book Conclave is a helpful guide to papal elections.

GET THE STORY.

The grotto in St. Peter’s Basilica where John Paul II was laid to rest has been re-opened to the public, and the public has turned out in droves:

"Thousands of mourners filed past the grave of Pope John Paul II after the Vatican reopened its grottoes for public viewing Wednesday, many carrying rosaries and medals they hoped would be blessed by the spirit of a man they already consider a saint."

Apparently, the burial site is rather inconspicuous; so, if you make the pilgrimage, the take-away lesson here is to keep your eyes peeled for the marker. Some didn’t and say they feel "defrauded":

"In an apparent effort to avoid the lines that stretched up to three miles to see the pope’s body last week, the ushers kept the crowd at St. Peter’s Basilica moving quickly. Many pilgrims said they didn’t even realize they were at the grave until they had already walked past.

"’We’ve been in Rome for three days waiting for this moment, and we felt a little defrauded,’ said Silvano Loayza, a 61-year-old Peruvian who lives in Tracy, Calif. ‘There wasn’t even time to pray. The man kept saying, ‘avanti, avanti, avanti.’"

Defrauded? This is St. Peter’s Basilica, not Euro Disney.

Curious about the phrase "Avanti, avanti, avanti," I went to FreeTranslation.com and plugged it in, requesting an Italian to English translation. Either the free translation is off or the ushers were urging mourners "Before, before, before."

GET THE STORY.

A reader writes:

I recently read an article about the stamps the Vatican has issued for the Sede Vacante and they, along with the images on the Vatican web site have me a bit confused. The feature the gold and silver keys to Heaven and Hell, which I understand, and something that looks all the world to me like an umbrella. What is this and what is it’s sympolism with regards to the Sede Vacante. Thanks.

From what I can tell, this symbol (as a whole, the umbrella and the keys) seems to be the arms of the camerlengo (chamberlain) who governs the Vatican in the interregnum between popes.

The keys, of course, represent the "keys of the kingdom" given by Jesus to Peter in Matthew 16:19:

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

NEAT STUFF ON BINDING AND LOOSING HERE.

They thus symbolize the camerlengo’s connection to the pope.

The umbrella-lookin’ thing is called (brace yourself for a shock!) an umbracullum, which means what it sounds like.

Originally these were carried by attendants to shade royalty from the sun, and popes started using them too. (Wikipedia says because it symbolized the temporal power of the papacy of the day, but I think it also had something to do with popes getting hot.)

MORE INFO ON PAPAL SYMBOLS.

MORE INFO ON THE UMBRACULLUM.

A reader writes:

I know you will appreciate having a copy of the official Vatican program for the Funeral Mass and Burial Rites for Pope John Paul II. I have attached to this e-mail a PDF format of the official program. It is in two files. The program includes everything–including the "non-public" rites celebrated inside St. Peter’s Basilica just before and just after the public rites outside in the square.

I definitely do appreciate it! It’s a fascinating read (though it is in Latin and Italian). Having these available is a great good.

MASS1.PDF

MASS2.PDF

Only thing I’m not sure about is the file format. I think St. Paul was pretty firm on rejecting the idea that we should use evil file formats that good may result. ;-D

Scott Hahn reflects on Pope John Paul II’s "superior command of [S]cripture" and how that influenced many Protestant Evangelicals — including Dr. Hahn, who converted to the Church in 1986:

"Though I was then a Protestant minister–Calvinist in training, evangelical in approach, and instinctively anti-Catholic–I was first drawn to Pope John Paul II in the early 1980s. I was not alone among his hesitant admirers. He captured our attention because of his effective combat in the culture wars. But he kept our attention because of something else.

"Gradually and grudgingly, many of us, Protestants and Catholics alike, came to admit that he was effective in the culture wars, not because of his bully pulpit or his media savvy or his philosophical suavity, but because of his superior command of scripture."

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Karen Hall of Some Have Hats for the link.)

Scott Hahn reflects on Pope John Paul II’s "superior command of [S]cripture" and how that influenced many Protestant Evangelicals — including Dr. Hahn, who converted to the Church in 1986:

"Though I was then a Protestant minister–Calvinist in training, evangelical in approach, and instinctively anti-Catholic–I was first drawn to Pope John Paul II in the early 1980s. I was not alone among his hesitant admirers. He captured our attention because of his effective combat in the culture wars. But he kept our attention because of something else.

"Gradually and grudgingly, many of us, Protestants and Catholics alike, came to admit that he was effective in the culture wars, not because of his bully pulpit or his media savvy or his philosophical suavity, but because of his superior command of scripture."

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Karen Hall of Some Have Hats for the link.)

Columnist Maggie Gallagher writes (excerpts):

Pope John Paul the Great is not yet buried, but the divisions among American Catholics have already taken center stage on cable television: Will the next pope be Catholic?

Of course, JP II’s critics don’t put it that way. But the long-deferred hopes of this group (call them sexual liberals) — that the Catholic Church is about to abandon its ancient teachings on premarital sex, abortion, divorce, homosexuality and, above all, birth control — have burst out anew in the 24-hour coverage of the pope’s death.

Sexual liberalism has a lot of powerful things going for it in terms of attracting adherents: passion, for instance, the difficulty of self-restraint, the attractiveness of choice as the highest moral good. But sexual liberalism’s most powerful ally is the myth of progress. Sexual liberals, like Marxists of old, see themselves as the inevitable wave of the future. The Catholic Church is "out of step" with the future, they believe, and must eventually get in line with the poll numbers, or fade into irrelevance.

Puncture this myth, and see how quickly the power of this set of ideas drizzles away.

Like Marxists of old, sexual liberals are going to be shocked and disappointed to find how irrelevant and outmoded their ideas seem. In 1968, the advice of sexual liberals — accommodate the sexual revolution or die — may have seemed tempting, even to the College of Cardinals. By 2004, it has become clear that Christian denominations that accepted this advice have not experienced religious revivals. Instead, such mainline Protestant sects are rapidly dwindling in numbers.

Sexual liberalism has a lot going for it, but it does have this one little drawback: Religions or societies that adopt it appear to die out.

GET THE STORY.

(Cowboy hat tip to the reader who e-mailed!)