The Pope had a spiffy miter for his Christmas Urbi et Orbi blessing.
Where did it come from?
There is a clue!
Look at the papal stemma.
This is the coat of arms of Papa Luciani, John Paul I, the pope everyone forgets to remember.
And just to show there is a hermeneutic of continuity even for the Pope’s miters, here is one made for Benedict!
From Midnight Mass:
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
on ROME 24/4– Day 34 (-7): The burial place of… PLATO?!?: “My baptismal anniversary. I’m mostly Scottish/Irish Catholic, birthed and educated by the Mercy Sisters during the height of the Troubles.…”
on ROME 24/4– Day 35 (-6): adventures in symmetry: “Father, it was perfect symmetry for two people. One cup handle facing one way and the other the other way.”
on ROME 24/4– Day 35 (-6): adventures in symmetry: “From a reader: “What are in the frames between the vestments?” Those are the priest’s vesting prayers. I’ll show more…”
on WDTPRS: 4th Sunday of Easter (Novus Ordo) – Mighty humble Shepherd, humble mighty flock: “Fr Z you are an inspiration in your knowledge about and love for the things of God and the church.…” on ROME 24/4– Day 32 (-9): Happy Birthday Rome!: “Holy cow that pasta. I wish we had smell-o-vision and taste-o-vision.”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “The German grind continues. It is in their nature.”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Scary about the women. What I mean is this: it would be disheartening enough just to find out that a…” on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “I wonder what’s going on with these women. Don’t they know that the greatest example of womanhood is Our Blessed…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Fr.Z sez: It is really sad that some people still push this rock up the hill. Reminds one of Sisyphus,…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Alas, those men pushing for ordaining women. STILL trying to get women to do all the work. My mother warned…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Dear Dcn PB, I don’t see how the reality can be described differently than by saying that the one sacrament…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Most people, whether pro or con, misunderstand the history and practice of the female diaconate. The deaconess was a separate…”
on Your Sunday Sermon Notes: 3rd Sunday after Easter (N.O. 4th of Easter) 2024: “I remember only the joke at the beginning of the homily: Priests get four weeks of vacation per year. Some…”
on “you must not remember your forefathers…” Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “My children at one of the solid Chesterton Academies have been taught science and theology by an amazing young Catholic…” on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “What is it that changed about the Catholic Herald? Interesting interview by George Farmer. (If only the faithful could be…”
Loading ...
A Daily Prayer for Priests
Nota bene: I do not answer these numbers or this Skype address. You won't get me "live". I check for messages regularly.
WDTPRS
020 8133 4535
651-447-6265
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful. Zelle and Wise are better, but PayPal is convenient.
A monthly subscription donation means I have steady income I can plan on. I put you my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I often say Holy Mass.
In view of the rapidly changing challenges I now face, I would like to add more $10/month subscribers. Will you please help?
For a one time donation...
Loading ...If you travel internationally, this is a super useful gizmo for your mobile internet data. I use one. If you get one through my link, I get data rewards.
Loading ...
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
Help Monks in Wyoming (coffee – UPDATED LINK) and Norcia (beer) and the wonderful "Soap Sisters" of Summit, NJ!
Please follow me on Twitter!
Use my code for a discount
Visits tracked by Statcounter
since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
Father,
Merry Christmas! I saw the blessing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orrBgESqv8g
Is that the blessing the Popes have always used at the Urbi et Orbi message?
And here is a picture of him wearing it.
I often wonder what the Church would have been like if Pope John Paul I had lived….perhaps for a reign of 15 years like Paul VI, and Karol Woytyla was never elected John Paul II, but rather ended his days in 2005 as the former Cardinal Archbishop of Krakow?
I read on several sites, and in a few Catholic magazines and newspapers, that Papa Luciani would have surprised people by his conservatism. Many speculate that the Tridentine Latin Mass would have been back years ago had John Paul I lived. He was averse to too much ecumenism, so after reading about his views, I doubt that the horrendous “Assisi” gatherings, or the appologizing for errors and faults in the Church would ever have occured…..and it goes without saying that there would not have been “altar girls”.
The Sedia would have been in constant use (even though Papa Luciani didn’t like being the center of attention), but He wasn’t the liturgical expert as Papa Ratzinger is. Still, Piero Marini would never have gotten his hand onto the liturgy with Pope John Paul I.
I read once that one of Pope John Paul I’s goals was to supress the Jesuits outright, and to order a return to “order” of the other religious Orders and congregations of pirests and nuns which today, 30 years later due to the rampant dissent and liberalism they espoused are close to extinction.
Only God knows what Pope Luciain would have been like, but from what I’ve read, He would have been a good 75% more conservative with regards to liturgy, disipline etc. than John Paul II……and of course there would have been next to no travels. Aside from his heart problems, Pope John Paul I did not like to fly.
Ack! Sorry. I messed up my html.
here is a picture of him wearing it.
John Paul I conservative? Where did you get that one? He was well known to be slightly progressive.
If you note he is weraing a cope of Blessed John XXIII. In some photos the Papal coat of arms is visible on Pope Benedict’s right.
Beautiful vestments to honor the KING on HIS birthday!
Pope John Paul I was the last to use the Sedia Gestatoria, so maybe a clue here?
I could be wrong, but I think that was the miter used by Paul VI and John Paul I during the latter’s brief reign. If it ever saw the light of day during JP II’s pontificate I do not recall it.
Christ is Born!
John
John Paul I used the Sedia ONLY because he was told people could not see him if he didn’t use it. I’m sure he hated using it; he was a very humble and shy man.
one of the greatest things in JPI sohrt pontificate was that giant mitre.
There’s a difference between “slightly progressive” and “cool with the destruction of the Faith.”
I remember that when JPI was elected, there was a lot of talk that he was going to undo some of the more egregious changes of VatII, particularly in the liturgy. But only a few weeks later, he was dead.
That said, I don’t think we should really worry too much about this. I will discreetly say that I wish JPII had done many other things that what he actually did, but on the other hand, there are people who regard him as a saint, so who knows. We just have to thank God for BXVI and pray for him, support him and move forward.
Fr, I think he must have been reading your blog and followed the link to the ecclesiastical hat site. Looking for miters, he scrolled quickly by his blue and yellow thing and eventually came to the picture of JPI wearing that miter and said “That’s the one!”
http://www.dieter-philippi.de/images/1552_Mitra_3.jpg
Look that cape, that was from Pope John XXIII
http://www.maj.com/gallery/arturus/KZ/w300px_251207s-vaticano.jpg
http://www.maj.com/gallery/arturus/KZ/dibujo.jpg
Michael,
I couldn’t have put it better myself. A truly humble prelate is one who allows the office to take precedence. His own personal predilections become secondary. I agree that His Holiness John Paul I would have probably allowed the office to which he had been elected to persist with tradition in tact.
It was (and I apologize and seek forgiveness for this statement) in all likelihood an unintentional hubris on the part of His Holiness John Paul II that he felt he could slice away the work of centuries – for indeed the Church does it’s best work in time frames marked in centuries – for the sake of his own personal aesthetic leanings.
Happy Christmas!
A little-discussed (but interesting) anecdote:
Cardinal Luciani was meeting with his seminarians one day c. 1976-1977. After discussing several points of theology with the seminarians, Cardinal Luciani said, “My sons, where have you learned all these heresies?”
He also was a great admirer of St. Josemaria. My sense of John Paul I is that he was elected pope, saw the wretched state of the Church, and died of a broken heart. His health was not good and I don’t think he was strong enough for the task at hand.
I am heartened to see the Holy Father wearing the mitre of John Paul I; I pray that he have our victim pope as his powerful intercessor in heaven. John Paul I, had he lived, intended to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary according to her instructions and was a true son of predilection of the Most Holy Virgin. See chapter 9 of _John Paul I: The Pope of the Secret_ http://www.crc-internet.org/JP1/Fatima4.htm .
The triple tiara on the stemma of John Paul I…
Not a bad emphasis on Christ’s fatherly governance in being Prophet, Priest and King.
In his short pontificate, he has a wonderful address to the College of Cardinals in which he mentions the suggestions (suggerimenti) of the Cardinals as, well, mere suggestions. He also speaks of governance of the Lord as paternity (paternità). Quoting Augustine, he demands that the local churches not cut themselves off « ex ipsa magna arbore quae ramorum suorum porrectione toto orbe diffunditur ». He speaks of the program for his pontificate only by way of the Cardinal’s own promise to serve « usque ad sanguinis effusionem ». See:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_i/speeches/documents/hf_jp-i_spe_30081978_cardinals_it.html
John Paul II, at the very end of his life, criticized himself about his lack of governance, which, as repentance, is a point in his favor, even if there are those in abundance who shun repentance as self-serving hypocrisy. This confession alone makes him Great.
Benedict XVI, well, he is the Pope of continuity whose “Marshall Plan”, as Fr Z calls it, is still unfolding.
All these good things are pre-Marini I.
Thus:
Instead of anyone inordinately pushing discontinuity between pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II, for which two periods we can find true continuity…
…how about, instead, encouraging an irreversible discontinuity between Marini I and Marini II, with Marini II providing, in a correct way, continuity for what is pre- and post-Vatican II?
Just what WDTPRS does.
This is only a surmise of mine but let’s suppose for an instant that Our Lord foresaw the “I am church” phenomenon coming into play in the 20th century and decided to allow the succession of events which occurred in the post Vatican II era and, to our great dismay, the lack of faith being evident in the so-called Catholic world. In a sense He was saying: “They will be left to their own devices for awhile until they, themselves, get sick of it and come back to Me for My Assistance!”
Let’s suppose that He left us to ourselves for our own sins and, after having quite enough of our machinations and modernistic impulses, decided to allow the election of Pope Benedict XVI knowing full well that he would begin the restoration to the true Catholic faith and bring about a reconciliation in Tradition for all Catholics who seek sincerely to love and serve their Triune God.
I choose to believe this is the case and I encourage all Catholics who are devoted to Tradition to come together in unity of Faith to support our Holy Father in his endeavors. Let us not shoot ourselves in the foot!
I am disturbed by all the criticism of Pope John Paul II. How can one fail to mention his role in the decline and fall of the Soviet Union, the upswell of Marian devotion that developed during his pontificate, the great personal affection in which so many millions hold his memory? He was the pope of Fatima, and of the third secret.
I understand and applaud the focus on traditional liturgy of this website. That was not a strength of our late Holy Father, it was not his focus. But while he allowed some unworthy liturgies to go forward, he kept the future Pope Benedict by his side as a counselor. One papacy led directly to the other.
John Paul I’s own words concerning the Liturgy from his homily of 23 September 1978:
Vorrei pure che Roma desse il buon esempio in fatto di Liturgia celebrata piamente e senza « creatività » stonate. Taluni abusi in materia liturgica hanno potuto favorire, per reazione, atteggiamenti che hanno portato a prese di posizione in se stesse insostenibili e in contrasto col Vangelo. Nel fare appello, con affetto e con speranza, al senso di responsabilità di ognuno di fronte a Dio e alla Chiesa, vorrei poter assicurare che ogni irregolarità liturgica sarà diligentemente evitata.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_i/homilies/documents/hf_jp-i_hom_23091978_it.html
As bishop and cardinal Luciani, he always stood for Tradition.
(check out http://auferanobis.blogspot.com/2007/11/wisdom-of-servant-of-god-john-paul-i.html )
He did, however, make the Catholic distinction between Tradition and traditions.
He was a “strict constructionist” in his reading of the documents of Vatican II. He once confessed to being against the decree on religious liberty, but changed his mind because he did not think that the Holy Spirit would allow so many bishops in an Ecumenical Council united to the pope to fall into error.
In regard to Liturgy, it seems he would have promoted the Novus Ordo, but done strictly according to the rubrics. As bishop, he always defended the pope’s authority and seems to have believed the pope had authority to modify certain ceremonies of the Mass.
I am quite sure if you gathered all the post-war pontiffs in a room somewhere, there would be much more harmony than many would like to suppose. Each brings a slightly different ‘weltanschaung’ no doubt, and each is constrained by the realities of the times. Personally, I am sure the late pontiff will be raised to the glories of the altar before long, perhaps even by the present one. In the mean time, I think the suggestion to pray for HH Benedict XVI, and move forward, is an excellent one.
Oh yes, the mitre DOES look spiffy.
It might be good to remember something about Benedict that may be pertinent to his appreciation of the triple tiara.
His usage of the mitre, even in his stemma, could be an act of repentance for what he once thought about the triple munus (as Cardinal Ratzinger, decades ago), namely, that any layman can be a pope and refuse to be ordained as the bishop of Rome.
In insisting on the mitre, a universal symbol of the episcopacy, he is stating that the triple munus is contingent upon being bishop