What do you miss?

16 Comments

1. Jacob S says:

   12 March 2007 at 7:09 PM

   I miss (not really, since I’m too young to know any of this, but still…) priests actually telling their parishes that they are living in sin or telling them what sin really is. When will the great preachers of the Church return in full?
2. John Hudson says:

   12 March 2007 at 7:26 PM

   I wonder how much the tiara weighs? I have to say that I don’t really miss this sign of the Pope’s temporal reign. I’m glad it is still very much part of the iconography of the Vatican State, where it belongs, but I think Pope Benedict’s decision to remove it from his personal papal coat of arms was characteristically surprising and intelligent. Like the abandonment of the title ‘Patriach of the West’, the separation of the monarchy of the Vatican State from the pastoral role of the ‘Servant of the Servants of God’ underlines and reinforces the universal nature of the Papacy. Replacing the crown with the mitre is also an important reminder that the Pope is primarily a bishop, and that the whole Church should look to him as a model of what a bishop is supposed to be and to do.
3. fr.franklyn mcafee says:

   12 March 2007 at 7:42 PM

   I miss amd long for the restoration of the tiara.It should have been kept for the “coronation” and then only used for very special occasions.Itshould have been kept at least in this way to preserve the tradition.The shape may have varied but it goes back quite aways.I love the remark of the renowned liturgist,Fr.Louis Bouyer regarding VII,”The Pope took off the tiara,and it landed on everyone else.”
4. Flambeaux says:

   12 March 2007 at 7:47 PM

   Perhaps the tiara will return when the next Emperor is crowned. There was a gap of (let’s see…late 400s to 800) about 350 years between Roman emperors.

   The most recent line (the HRE) lasted until 1806, but the line of succession was valid until Blessed Karl of Austria was deposed in 1918.

   Perhaps, out of the ashes of Eurabia, the tiara will arise phoenix-like when it is again necessary and valuable, since today it would simply serve as an object of ridicule.
5. Brian Day says:

   12 March 2007 at 8:10 PM

   Like Jacob, I would like the return of “mortal sin”.

   ‘Grave sin’ as a term, just doesn’t cut it. Ok, off to confession, er, I mean reconciliation, now.
6. Deacon John says:

   12 March 2007 at 8:49 PM

   What good is the tiara if there is no respect for the wearer? I miss the respect, love and obedience Catholics had for the Pope! American’s have a fascination for Kings and Queens and would give their left arm to have an audience with one. The Lord has given the world a great Monarch, the Holy Father, but he is mostly ignored or mocked by everyone, including Catholics. Let us continue to love, pray for and obey Christ’s vicar on earth!
7. Flambeaux says:

   12 March 2007 at 9:32 PM

   Deacon John,

   To amplify upon your comments, if I may: Holy Mother Church has given us a monarch in every diocese in the person of the Bishop. Some act like foul despots, others as benevolent philosopher kings…but it is my experience that most reject wholesale the suggestion that they are, and should be, monarchs. They prefer instead CEO of their own enterprise or Senior Divisional Vice President of the Local Branch of Roman Catholicism, Inc.

   Yes, we do have a sovereign in the person of the Vicar of Christ. But in each diocese there is a sovereign, and regardless of trad or prog sympathies, the longer we live in ignorance or denial of that fact, the longer it will take for any true “reform of the reform” to occur.
8. Ole Doc Farmer says:

   13 March 2007 at 12:51 AM

   I’d like to see the tiara or some other distinctive papal vestment (the gremaille?) return. The mitre alone doesn’t cut it. Yes, the Pope is a bishop…but he’s certainly more than just a bishop.
9. Humboldt says:

   13 March 2007 at 1:12 AM

   I don’t see the tiara a as emperial sign. On the contrary. Today’s popes who don’t wear the tiara, a much more imperial in their powers, than the popes before Vatican II. The last pope who regularly used it was, by the way, John XXIII. It is a mistake to give ornaments an imperial meaning. The day a pope uses the tiara, it will be an unmistakenly sign that tradition has returned to the Church.
10. Seamas O Dalaigh says:

    13 March 2007 at 1:56 AM

    Father,

    Yes, I’d like to see the return of the tiara. But would it be… um, “ecumenical”? Heretics seem to regard the tiara with particular distaste.

    James Daly
11. Zach says:

    13 March 2007 at 2:05 AM

    Is that John XXIII’s tiara? Just a guess. Either that or Pius XII, but I’d place my money on John.

    BTW, yes I’d miss it if I could remember a pope who wore one (JPII generation).
12. B. says:

    13 March 2007 at 9:47 AM

    John Hudson:
    Replacing the crown with the mitre is also an important reminder that the Pope is primarily a bishop, and that the whole Church should look to him as a model of what a bishop is supposed to be and to do.

    I think replacing the crown with the mitre was a big mistake. The coat of arms is a worldly display, not an ecclesiastical sign. The coats of arms of priests and bishops have capellos (their wordly headgear) not birettas and mitres. Placing a liturgical device in the coat of arms is exactly the mixing of ecclesiastical and worldly power that is supposedly so pre-conciliar, and it’s a heraldic desaster. Well-intentioned is sometimes the opposite of well done.
13. M. McWilliams says:

    13 March 2007 at 12:33 PM

    I miss the Papal tiara, the Sedia Gestatoria (if for no other practical reason than when the Pope comes into an audience or Mass now, He walks. No one can see Him at all. Can you imagine coming all the way form the USA (or elsewhere) to see the Pope in audience or a Papal Mass and you can’t see him as he walks down St. Peter’s nave or the Piazza? What a disappoinitment. I have tapes of Pius XII in Papal Masses, carried on the Sedia, with Tiara and ornate vestments. That Pope surely knew how to present Himself as such. John XXIII alittle bit….but none since. For all His supposed charisma, John Paul II had no taste with regards to the liturgy. Wearing vestments like bedsheets were embarrasing to say the least.
    I miss the Papal court, and all the color. The British wouldn’t think of discarding their court.
    discarding the color and pomp of the King/Queen’s court. People love it. People loved the Papal court and its color. And in the view of many I’ve heard about (historians, etc.), the Papal court display and color outdid the British by a long shot. I don’t want to go on too much…..there’s too much I miss about the Papacy, the Mass, and it magnificence of being Catholic.
14. Humboldt says:

    13 March 2007 at 5:54 PM

    “John Hudson:
    Replacing the crown with the mitre is also an important reminder that the Pope is primarily a bishop, and that the whole Church should look to him as a model of what a bishop is supposed to be and to do.”

    John Hudson you are wrong in saying that the Popes is primarily a bishop. Even though he is a bishop, the bishop of Rome, his function as pope is not to be a bishop, but to be the Vicar of Jesus Christ, that is the visible head of the church, the chief of the Catholic Church, the Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church. So its wrong to say that his “primarily” function is to be a bishop, because this not true. An actually the voat of arms of Benedict XVI, even though changed the triple tiara with a mitre, still retained the symbolism of the tripe authorities of the pope in the mitre, as evidenced by the mitre with the three horizontal striped. Still he even added a vertical line perpendicular to the three horizontal stripes, to indicate that all the three authorities are vested only in one person, the pope.
15. Humboldt says:

    13 March 2007 at 5:56 PM

    I agree with the comment by M. McWilliams. The papacy is so ideologized that they more interested in pleasing the secular ideology than in pleasing his faithful. All in all a real lack of charity.
16. Humboldt says:

    13 March 2007 at 6:00 PM

    Zach, actually that is the tiara that Pius XII and John XXIII used at their crowning ceremonies. I don’t know who it belonged originaly. Paul VI used a new one for him only, which he sold for money to give it to the poor (I wonder how many people it pulled out of poverty; talking about void symbolisms).

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