The holy tiara and those who never understood it...

"The gift of the Tiara occured on 13th November 1964, shortly before the Holy Father's departure for Bombay. The pope concelebrated Mass in St. Peter's according to the Byzantine rite together with the Melchite Patriarch. At the end of the liturgy the Secretary General of the Council publicly recalled that according to Jesus Christ's example, the Church had always been the mother of the poor, and that accordingly, the pope was donating his tiara to them.

The Holy Father himself, among the acclamations of the crowd, approached the altar and laid the tiara upon it. The gesture aroused a great surprise, for not all approved of it; it meant that his succesors had to renounce it too. [bonk!] With this gesture the pope was giving a new view of the very papal ministry. But it was not an impulsive action. The pope intended to live in poverty according to the teachings of Christ and of the Council, which was making use of the expression "Church of the poor."

...And the poor, as he had remarked in Milan years earlier, are always with us, as Christ taught. On one occasion, at the end of the meeting of the St. Vincent Society in Milan, a collection was made. The Archbishop, who never carried money with him, deposited his Episcopal ring in the box.

The last reason for the gift of the tiara was not poverty, but ecumenism. He wanted to avoid by all means anything that might have emphasised distances, misunderstandings, and disagreement between the Catholic Church and the other Christian Churches."

-Paul VI The Man and His Message by Archbishop Pasquale Macchi, English translation 2007.

Catholic culture lives: the tiara and your golf game!

Ever seen a tiara on a golf club insignia? Check it out here: http://www.golf.ascona.ch/ .

Or a tiara on a spa insignia? Check it out here: http://www.termedeipapi.it/index.php?zn=leterme&subzn=acque

A Roma folla di tifosi per la tiara!

We want the tiara back! I took this photo in the Vatican City last week and I like it because one can see the nice (elegant) tiara here.

Requiem for a Pope...

Do you like the catafalque that we put together (with the homespun tiara as the counterpoint!)? The occasion was our parish Missa Pro Defunctis (with black vestments and no flowers!) staged for the soul of Pope John Paul II, of blessed memory. In a flurry of incense, the whole image was immortal! The haunting sound of the Gregorian Requiem is our inheritance as the Catholics of today!

With a change in style to match the hour, as we were bereft of a true tiara, a couple of parishioners stepped up to the plate and made the tiara themselves (Chris Wells Fecit Romae MMV & Familia Maurizio Donavit MMV)! The catafalque reclined on a bier and reposed under the black funeral pall was an empty coffin surmounted on a plinth (no pallbearers or sleek hearse as they and the undertaker were at the actual lying-in-state at the Vatican!).

Oremus pro Pontifice nostro Ioanne Paulo! Corona aurea super caput eius!

Tiara of Pope Pius XI...

In 1922 this tiara was created for the newly elected Pope Pius XI. It was donated by the people of Desio, where he was born (near Milan). It's the good old days that some of us mancare.

Teach your kids what the tiara is/means...

If you don't know what the tiara is then do your homework with a Wikipedia search and then teach your kids what it is and gift them with a reverence for the whole of Catholic culture.

The tiara: what to have done with it...

This photo was taken at the Greek rite monastery of St. Nilo in Grottaferrata, near Rome.

And we all know what happened to the tiara: it was killed.

But some have now suggested that instead of just ignoring it or not using it, as four popes have now done, it would have been better to have gone back to its just having its original single crown as seen here.

That way it might have had a better chance of surviving.

The holy tiara and those who never understood it...

"In the same spirit, he refused the tiara. It wasn't that he was rejecting the symbolic link with a temporal power whose time had passed. No, the point was much simpler: Vatican II had created a more Gospel-oriented, more spiritual Church."

-A Life With Karol by Stanislaw Cardinal Dziwisz, page 71.

BENEDICTVS PP. XVI

As we witness the downturn of the sixties thrust we are now seeing a revival of many things Catholic and here is an example.

Here we see a splendid rendition of the arms of our new German Pope from the hands of our Italo-American friend, MB. Unique in that we see here an early version of the tiara (this is not a mitre).

Some have suggested it would have been more appropriate to have gone back to this version instead of just doing away with the tiara all together in the spirit of the age.

Holy Father: please the tiara!

Beatissime Pater:

Please bring back the tiara (it would be glorious!) and we ask that St. Catherine of Siena might intercede for this intention!

Humbly kissing the sacred slipper...

JPSonnen

P.S. I offered a prayer for this intention in the Cathedral of St. Francis in Civitavecchia where this photo was taken

Tradition is back, friends, so enjoy...

Many of us have an insatiable curiosity about the tiara and how it is depicted (especailly how it is depicted now on the papal coat-of-arms of the B-16 bomber).

Liberals are in a quandary because there is a whole revival of Catholic heraldry and even more young laymen and clerics are now designing their own arms - according to standards of Catholic heraldry.

Here's a taste from the Rome front (my good italoamericano friend M.B. made this all by himself). Many are of the opinion that instead of getting 'rid of the tiara in 1963 (for all the reasons the Pope and the press gave at that time), they should have just gone back to the more original look as depicted here.

Catholic culture: the tiara...

The headpiece of the Popes - this is the last one used in 1963 and now kept in the crypt of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in D.C.

The tiara: we want it back again...

From S. Maria in Via Lata.

Tiara of Pius XI: 1922 - 1939...

Photo taken at the 80th anniversary of the Vatican City State exhibit.

The triple crown tiara...

From the Sala Clementina of the Palazzo Apostolico.

As the light dances at whatever hour...

Dawn or dusk, bring your camera and kindly know that as the clock turns, the tiara lives!

From the Italian sacristy...

To each his own by the Belgian chasubles in the top photo sure look nice. In the middle photo can be seen the arms of the R.F.S.P. (Reverend Fabric [workshop] of St. Peter's) and in the bottom photo is the 1940s material with the tiara/keys and barque of St. Peter.

Paulus pp. VI...

The world says more Freud and Marx, but we know the true answer is more tiara, more biretta and more moiré!

Papal Audience Hall: Sala Clementina...

Sorry to soccer moms of the world! These are just interesting images coming from the magnificent papal audience hall, the Sala Clementina.

Interesting shots of the triple crown tiara...and the benignant mother who has just given birth "sprays" others who are not her children with her milk as a symbol of charitableness (benevolence) charity given in a benevolent manner, etc.

In a similar manner one often sees an image of "charity" who nurses a child who is not her own.

Pius XII Exhibit at the Vatican...

Irresistibly gorgeous. And why? Because we give our best for the sanctum sanctorum (the sanctuary - the holy of holies).

Mitre of Benny XV and tiara of Pius IX, both used by Pius XII from 1939 on.