Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Cardinal Secretary of State's Visit to Angelicum...


This month the new Cardinal Secretary of State, His Eminence T. Card. Bertone, made an official visit to Rome's Dominican University, the Angelicum. The occasion was the celebration of the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. His Eminence sang the Mass and briefly greeted faculty, staff and students.

The Cardinal vests in the Angelicum chapel...


The Cardinal at the Bernini side altar...


The Cardinal and his attendants...


The Cardinal vests in the amice...


The Cardinal and his master of ceremonies...


The Cardinal vests in the alb...


The procession begins...


The Cardinal, Dominicans and the faithful...


The Dominicans sing the Mass...


The Cardinal and his master of ceremonies...


The Cardinal met with applause...


The Cardinal greets the students...


The Cardinal and Rector Magnificus...


The Cardinal takes his leave...


Creepy: the dreaded Jesuit headquarters...


Each facade: grande itinerario culturale europeo...

Learn your Latin now so you can read these many words carved in travertine and marble in our churches. The Church, through the artist, has a message for you: often in our timeless (Catholic) tongue!

The sanctuary: holy of holies...


“Priests alone, sir, are allowed to remain within the sanctuary. Depart, therefore, and stand with the rest of the laity. The purple makes princes, not priests.”

Sozomen: Ecclesiastical History, 7, 25.
(Famous words attributed to St. Ambrose when the emperor Theodosius entered the sanctuary to receive Communion) (4th cent.)

Ecclesia non moritur: the Church does not die...


“The myth of Rome’s superb organization dies hard, but the more one sees of the Church from the inside the more convinced one becomes that the Church owes its success, and indeed its survival in a world of enemies, less to Henry Fordian organization than to supernatural assistance.’

Arnold Lunn: Now I See (20th cent.)

Romae natus...


Life is good…in Rome…in the winter…in a Ditta A. Gammarelli cassock…on the Mons Caelius/Coelian Hill!
Makes me just want to say in Latin to some foe of Mother Church: Christianus mihi nomen est, Catholicus cognomen! (Christian is my name, Catholic my surname!).

Quote from St. Pacianus of Barcelona: Contra Sympronianum, I, 4, (4th cent.).

Study abroad in Rome...


This is the experience! You can tell these students are American as (a.) they're actually sitting in the street and loving it while (b.) their teacher is actually wearing a tie and a big Italian scarf trying to look European while knowing nothing about Art History (you have to understand the theology behind the art to really see the picture)!

That same old stole that we all know and love...


“I also established friendships with Germans: Cardinal Alfred Bengsch, a year my junior, Joseph Hoffner of Cologne, and Joseph Ratzinger, churchmen of exceptional theological competence. I particularly remember the then very young Professor Ratzinger. At the Council he was accompanying Cardinal Joseph Frings, archbishop of Cologne, as a theological expert. He was later named archbishop of Munich by Pope Paul VI, who also made him a cardinal, and he took part in the conclave that elected me to the Petrine ministry. When Cardinal Franjo Seper died, I asked Cardinal Ratzinger to take his place as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I thank God for the presence and the assistance of this great man, who is a trusted friend.”

Pope John Paul II: Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way (a. 2004)

The Church: both human and divine...


“The Church, like Her Master and His ordinances, must have an earthly as well as divine nature, if she is to do His work.”

R. H. Benson: A City Set on a Hill (20th cent.)


Europa Cristiana: liturgy in Rome...


La Roma del futuro: www.fsspinurbe.blogspot.com

The Church Militant: in Minnesota...


“But we teach that there is only one Church, and not two, and that the one and true Church is the assembly (coetus) of men bound together by the profession of the same Christian faith and by the communion of the same sacraments, under the rule of legitimate pastors, and especially of the one vicar of Christ on earth, the Roman pontiff.”

St. Robert Bellarmine: De Ecclesia Militante, 2 (17th cent.).

Jesus is scourged at the (first) pillar...


The Second Sowerful Mystery: Jesus is Scourged at the Pillar…

I took this photo in Rome's parish of S. Prassede, just across the street from St. Mary Major. Since I was a kid I dreamed of seeing this relic. Setting out on my quest to Rome in 1998, I found it - accidentally!

“My people, what have I don’t to you? Wherein have I offended you? Laden with My gifts you scourge Me like the least of slaves.”

I remember such devotions as a kid as veneration of the thorn-crowned head of the Savior, devotion in honor of the five holy wounds or prayer in honor of the forgotten shoulder wound of Jesus, etc. Our faith is so rich.

Jesus is scourged at the (second) pillar...


The Second Sowerful Mystery: Jesus is Scourged at the Pillar…

I took this photo in the Armenian chapel on the upper level at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The Armenians are in possession of this pillar in which they believe Christ was tied to while being scourged.

“My people, what have I don’t to you? Wherein have I offended you? Laden with My gifts you scourge Me like the least of slaves.”


Jesus is scourged at the (third) pillar...


The Second Sowerful Mystery: Jesus is Scourged at the Pillar…
I took this photo in the Latin Chapel of the Franciscans at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Tradition attributes this pillar as the one in which our Blessed Lord was tied to and scourged.

“My people, what have I don’t to you? Wherein have I offended you? Laden with My gifts you scourge Me like the least of slaves.”



Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Mt. Vesuvius from Pompei...

I guess it pays to have connections?! My priest friend brough us up to the roof of the shrine in Pompei for this rooftop view of Mount Vesuvius.

Visit this shrine in Pompei next to Naples...


Tuscan cigars on the Adriatic Sea...


Islam: warlords or religion of peace...


Our cultural elite go around twittering over insufficient “respect” for the “religion of peace” and entirely fictional outbreaks of “Islamophobia.” Meanwhile, our Christianity is being dismantled by the same persons and relegated to the periphery of the “private”...

“Civilizations die from suicide, not murder.”

Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History (1934-1961)

If you want to be informed of Islam and Europe, read this hilarious book:

America Alone by Mark Steyn (www.marksteyn.com)

Our democratic societies have devoted all their planning to the technical and industrial organization while leaving the sphere of culture to the private initiative of individuals (now growing immigration populations from the Arab world) deconstruct the Judeo-Christian Europe…

The Catholic nest...

The world is hostile to the Catholic Faith and that is why Christianity is lived in the private. But lets start here, as with this homestead, with a blessed object - a statue - in the front yard. This way, we remind ourselves and others, that this citadel, set on a hill, always under seige, but never taken, will not die.

Students of theology in Rome...


Lucky us in Orvieto: all theology students from Rome enjoying a nice antica tradizione della tavola italiana! She was from Mexico, he was from Palestine, the other from Poland, the other from Egypt and the other four of us from the New World! I always feel like a Greek of the anceint world - my native tongue is the lingua franca!

Communism blasted by Paul VI...


Once I heard a clown complain to me that Vatican Council II should have blasted communism (?). Actually, he knew little of Vatican Council II because he had never read the glorious Ecclesiam Suam. Be informed and know this magnum opus.
101. "These are the reasons which compel us, as they compelled our predecessors and, with them, everyone who has religious values at heart, to condemn the ideological systems which deny God and oppress the church-systems which are often identified with economic, social and political regimes, amongst which atheistic communism is the chief."

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Pro-gression of beauty: the Latin Mass...


The Catholic feels a complement here: finally at home in the criterion of catholicity! To fathom the depth of such infinite dimensions of beauty: the breadth, length, height and depth of the love that God offers to us via the liturgical rites, in which we already abide!

Why do I prefer the Classical Roman Rite? It’s just unhindered in the dimension of time and so inexhaustible while of global dimensions. In fact, hoc erat in more majorum (this was in the manner of our ancestors). God is never completely graspable, but when beauty is so utilized as we see here, it sure is a joy!

To win a Roman photo contest...

It would be great if I could get a cash prize for this photo? I took this from the windows of a flying bus while lost in Parioli and trying to be artistic at the same time.

IL GALERO ROSSO VIVE...


Study at the Oriental Institute...


The Roman Sacristy...


You know it's a SACRISTIA when you've got this nice Latin carved in the polished marble: SACRORVM CVSTODIA.

Educate them in the Faith...


Catholic parents today often know little and so what they pass on to their kids is just an ethical sketch of Catholic morals and not much more.
Parents, educate yourselves so as to teach your kids. Your kids will not be taught catechesis at school or day-care or anywhere else. Pray for the grace that you can start to teach yourself first principles of the Faith.
There is a practical but also an objectively guaranteed right way through the confusion of opinions and hypotheses and if you don't teach your kids the way (this is your job) then no one else will (it is your responsibility).

The Apostolic Palace...


In case you ever wondered, the Catholic Church is run/operated, to a great extent, from this one building. The top floor is where the Pope lives and works. There is even a terrace on the roof where the Pope goes each day to get some fresh air (fresh as fresh can be in Rome).

From the top of Rome...


I have to admit that the view of Rome from the roof of the Palazzo Pio is rather niiiice! Palazzo Pio is the headquarters of Vatican Radio and its great to spend some leisure time on the roof.

Overlooking Main Street in Rome...

Nice travertine hulk as a coat-of-arms overlooking the Corso V.E. II. Makes me, [sigh], miss the old days!

From Santa Pudenziana...


Sanctus Petrus...


Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum (2 Cor 11:28).

When he was installed in office by the risen Lord, Peter received no other promise than his death on a cross:
“When you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go” (Jn 21:18).

The See of Peter...


The Petrine Church leadership “must be divine in its content to impress itself so strongly on the religious conscience of all informed and well-meaning persons; and it must be human and imperfect in its historical manifestation to permit a moral opposition and make room for doubt, struggle, temptation and all that constitutes the merit of free and truly human virute.”

Vladimir Soloviev, La Russie et l’Eglise universelle [Russia and the Universal Church] (Paris: Nouvelle Librairie Parisienne, 1889).

Mater et Caput...


This is our home away from home. It is the Lateran Archbasilica. It is lovely and a holy, holy, holy temple.

Culture: always in need of renewal...


Even Rome with its duty-bound beauy is in need of a fresh skim coat now and then. The same is true of culture. Renewal flows from the living Church...

If as a hobby you read Latin...


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