UPDATE 16 Sept ’23
Over at NLM there is a pure satire gold post that might make you snort Mystic Monk Coffee out your nose. HERE
It concerns the approval by Rome of the use of animal skins and parts – replacing the traditional liturgical colors, of course – to celebrate the liturgy of creation.
[…]
The official Latin text is still being composed (it will be called Risu dignum et justum), but a special note has already been released, which recommends the black-and-white striped hide of the quagga as a profound and meaningful expression of the unity of the Paschal mystery, and therefore especially appropriate for funerals. (It is left to the local episcopal conferences to determine which extinct animals’ hides will be most profoundly significant and meaningful for use in funeral liturgies; they are, however, strictly forbidden from making any such determination without the approval of the Sacred Congregation for Rites, to be requested in writing.)
[…]
See the rest there.
I could kick myself for not coming up with this myself. Kudos.
Originally posted Sep 14, 2023 at 17:56
From the Italian site Messa in Latino.
A bishop in the Puglia region (heel of the boot), Most. Rev. Nicola Girasoli, celebrated a Mass for the anniversary of ordination of one of the diocese’s pastors (parish priests). Girasoli had been, is, a Nuncio. Photos are available at the Fakebook page of the Cathedral of the Diocese of Ruvo di Puglia. MiL helps us out by putting them on their page.
Leopard skin. Very tricky. You have to have the right complexion.
The gray of his street clothes – so typical of Italian clergy – is a better contrast to the spots than that nasty cream-colored polyester alb with the fashion-fatal zipper in the front.
You can have this.
But you can’t have this!
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“Leopard skin. Very tricky. You have to have the right complexion.”
Did he get kicked out of the store for skinning one of the stuffed animals?
Like most things in the Church of today, super gay!
Keeping straight, masculine men away from the sacraments since the 1970’s.
Only other place where I’ve seen leopard print worn by a man was Church street Toronto. Put it this way, Church street isn’t very straight.
We will win the long game.
What. The. Cheetah.
The most shocking thing to me is that the candles are (more or less) symmetrical between the frozen Narnia-style altar cross. Troppo antiquato!
Fr Z can you talk about those crucifixes these men wear? Francis wears it and we do see them on other clergy mostly in Rome. What’s the deal with that. It looks odd, I’ve seen pictures of it up close, and there is a great deal wrong with it, apparently, those are goats not sheep? The face on “Christ” is off, not right. There were other oddities. Why do they all wear these. Was there a sale?
Oh, those zippers in the albs… or in the chasuble, the pallas in a plastic cover, idem for the missal, and a very long et cetera.
At home for a bit more formal dinner we had the unwritten rule “no plastic in the table. ” I think it applies very well in the liturgy too.
This had me scratching my head. Is this a reference to Il Gattopardo by Lampedusa? Not having read the novel, nor seen the movie, I couldn’t say. I googled leopard in the scriptures and came up with Jeremiah 5:6, Jeremiah 13:23, Daniel 7:6, Revelation 13:2, and more.
I was also offered the following themes, derived from various bible verses:
Beasts » Unclean » Leopard
Leopard » Fierceness of
Leopard » Lies in wait for its prey
Leopard » Inhabited mountains of canaan
Leopard » Illustrative » Of antiChrist
Leopard » Described as » Spotted
Leopard » Described as » Fierce and cruel
Leopard » Described as » Swift
Leopard » Illustrative » (tamed,) of the wicked subdued by the gospel
Leopard » Illustrative » Of the macedonian empire
Leopard » Illustrative » Of God in his judgments
Leopard » Figurative » Taming of, the triumph of the gospel
Leopard » Animal » Carnivorous
Most of the symbolism seems inappropriate for a chasuble. Ditto the leopard in the opening canto of the Commedia.
In the first picture, the chalice with the purificator carelessly draped over it is symbolic of the whole attitude of the Novus Ordo mass. Instead of a properly vested chalice as you would have in a TLM. The devil is in the details. As a parish sacristan and altar server these sorts of things bother me.
The letter which accompanied Traditionis Custodes stated: “At the same time, I ask you to be vigilant in ensuring that every liturgy be celebrated with decorum and fidelity to the liturgical books promulgated after Vatican Council II, without the eccentricities that can easily degenerate into abuses. ” Evidently, the Bishop of Ruvo didn’t get to that part of the letter yet.
On of the most frustrating parts of the current pontificate is the inconsistency in the position it takes and the language it uses. It insists that there is a unique Roman Rite but then attempts to construct an indigenous rite for certain dioceses in Mexico where the Roman Rite has been celebrated for centuries. It preaches about the wonders of synodality but then dismisses concerns in the American church as “ideologies.”
How utterly ridiculous! He must’ve gotten his “chasuble” from Wakanda Clothiers, Inc…..
You need to be careful wearing that chasuable outdoors. Luckily he’s not in Africa where he might get mistaken by a hunter/poacher.
In the Army, I saw a few priests in cammo, but….
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I wrote a parody to the tune of “The Church’s One Foundation” when the bishop celebrated Mass in a necklace of Snickers bars. Looks like it needs a new verse:
The nuncio’s not sorry
Just see his happy smile
He’s come back from safari
At Walmart’s ladies’ aisle
Behold this hippie shepherd
How dated seem his thoughts
Just like the storied leopard
He cannot change his spots
Il Gattopardo
Because why have the mass at all if you’re not going to be fabulous?
Our Church, from the promoter of fine art to clueless bad taste. He looks like he tore of a street walker.
I get why this is not good Catholic liturgical fashion for Mass. I really get it.
Moving on from that to a serious question: I am curious if you know if prior to say, Vatican I and the current liturgical colour system rare or expensive furs were ever liturgically appropriate or common, particularly in Northern Europe? We associate ermine linings with royalty and nobility. And I know about the papal camauro. But those are secular garments. Would rare or unusual furs ever have been made into chasubles, copes, etc. historically. Most cultures set aside particularly expensive things to be part of worship. If it was 1089 and a knight had brought a (real–not this!) leopard skin home to his local bishop, would it get incorporated into liturgical regalia?
Kathleen10,
Wht do they all wear them?
Over 30 years ago the late, great Count Neri Capponi told me: The Church in Italy is a Court Church.
Robtbrown, thank you, what is a Court Church? I looked it up and get no definition of it.
Hmm. I don’t suppose there’s a PETA chapter in Italy . . . .
He shouldn’t be surprised by all the attention. He had to know he’d be spotted.
I’m in the middle of reading Desolation Island. I fear I won’t be able to see the name of Capt. Aubrey’s current ship without this picture popping up in my head…
Kathleen10: A court church is a Chapel or priest (or bishop) attached to a court of power (I.e. like the personal Chapel set-up of a King). If the Bishop or priest in charge is a man of the cloth, then the church follows church teaching and sensibilities. If they follow power, then they follow the whims of the leader in charge.
It reminds of the line from Kingdom of Heaven from the Bishop of Jerusalem: ” Convert to Islam! Repent later! It is God’s will!”
Grumpy: Desolation Island
Which the description of the high sea chase in the “Roaring Forties” by the Waakzaamheid … truly haunting. Which wasn’t the first time I read it on a “dark and stormy night”. Which and the reading by Simon Vance is astonishing.
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Chaswjd points out:
Traditionis Custodes stated: “At the same time, I ask you to be vigilant in ensuring that every liturgy be celebrated with decorum and fidelity to the liturgical books promulgated after Vatican Council II, without the eccentricities that can easily degenerate into abuses. ”
After 50 years of popes saying “oh, gee, stop the liturgical abuses, pretty please” without taking any steps that actually, ya know, STOP the abuses, you have to think that they just don’t mean it.
Pope (St.) Paul VI knew that they were handing out communion in the hand, and instead of cracking down, he changed the law about it. Pope (St.) John Paul knew they were making altar boys out of girls, and instead of taking names of bishops who were permitting it (and promoting it), he decided to change the law. (Worse, he allowed a horrible lawyer to “interpret” the new 1983 Canon Law out of the “problem” by finding a non-existent loophole to permit it, thus damaging respect for law even further.) When he “restricted” the permission to use girl altar boys where it had already become the custom (in violation of law), not once did he bother to, ya know, actually check to see if that was indeed the case, nor ever take a priest or bishop to task for that.
When JPII knew beyond any doubt that bishops utterly repudiated his directive to be “generous” in the use of TLM under Ecclesia Dei, he never took them to task for it. When Benedict became pope, he also new that bishops treated Ecclesia Dei as an onerous burden to be flouted whenever possible, instead of taking names and handing out punishments, he did (tried) and end-run around them by issuing Summorum Pontificum. Which was great, in places where bishops themselves weren’t PUNISHING pastors for thinking that they were free to use the TLM. And instead of mandating a correction of the abuses of the Novus Ordo that he himself hated, he let them persist.
Personnel is policy: All 3 of those popes promoted the bishops we have now. And the cardinals. I cannot for the life of me understand how they could: these popes weren’t heretics. What were they thinking?