Such beautiful Catholic traditions in vesture alll destroyed with one stroke of the pen by Paul VI in 1968, with thedisasterous decree "Pontificalis Domus", whereby three centuries of papal and clerical vesture in the Vatican and in religious ceremonies in Rome was swept away. Cardinals used to have three colors of vesture....scarlet red cassocks, cappa magnas, hats, mantelletas (or the color of your religious Order if the Cardinal was a religious....white and black for Dominicans, grey for Franciscans, black for Benedictines, brown for Carmelites), then there was a reddish-violet worn for periods of mourning, and also there was a third color of vestments, a rose-pink cappa magna, cassock, etc. worn on only a certain period of the year. All discarded by Paul VI. All the various garbs of Vatican attendants, clerics, monsignori, bishops, Cardinals, and even lay functionaries all discarded by Paul VI.
Now in the Vatican we have the plain black cassock with colored sash (for a Cardinals, bishop, or monsignor) ...but more likely for most who work in the Vatican is the horrible , slovenly short sleeved wash n wear clergy leisure shirt and tab Roman collar and a pair of matching (or not) pants. Some , at least until recently, even wore layclothes. A disgrace to have discarded all the magnificent Catholic vesture, etiquette, and symbolism. And replaced it with nothing.
"Ut sive sollicite" and "Pontificalis domus" are embarrassing documents. Pope Paul VI acted like an enlightenment and utilitarian despot, who sees only an alleged "usefulness" as primal right for subsistence. This acts shot down with a scratch of the pen centuries of an elaborated and organically evolved ceremonal, full of rich signs and symbols. The lack of any vestige of the old and time-honored ceremonial of the old sacred roman court has ironically lead to the coarse modern media cult of personality surrounding the modern papacies in their "pontifical house" after bl. John XXXIII Roncalli, who was the last pontiff who had an encompassing sentiment and genuine awareness for the significance of rites and symbols.
Noe was a very big part of it. But also Bugnini, and some other radical priests.
Paul VI was a radical at heart too, until almost the very end of his life....when he started to have very, very serious misgivings about the whole of Vatican II. This began around 1975. Much too late to torture himself with doubts, but Paul VI did so. And it ruined his health.
There needs to be a brief stating that, along with the liberation of the 1962 Missal, the clerical garb worn should also be "period". If I am not mistaken, a point was made by the curia that choir dress with train, tuffed fasciae, etc., were "no no's"; that current rubrics were to be observed. If we are going back to '62, gentlemen, then let it be across the board. -Donnacha
Sede Vacante AD 1958.
Such beautiful Catholic traditions in vesture alll destroyed with one stroke of the pen by Paul VI in 1968, with thedisasterous decree "Pontificalis Domus", whereby three centuries of papal and clerical vesture in the Vatican and in religious ceremonies in Rome was swept away.
ReplyDeleteCardinals used to have three colors of vesture....scarlet red cassocks, cappa magnas, hats, mantelletas (or the color of your religious Order if the Cardinal was a religious....white and black for Dominicans, grey for Franciscans, black for Benedictines, brown for Carmelites), then there was a reddish-violet worn for periods of mourning, and also there was a third color of vestments, a rose-pink cappa magna, cassock, etc. worn on only a certain period of the year. All discarded by Paul VI.
All the various garbs of Vatican attendants, clerics, monsignori, bishops, Cardinals, and even lay functionaries all discarded by Paul VI.
Now in the Vatican we have the plain black cassock with colored sash (for a Cardinals, bishop, or monsignor) ...but more likely for most who work in the Vatican is the horrible , slovenly short sleeved wash n wear clergy leisure shirt and tab Roman collar and a pair of matching (or not) pants. Some , at least until recently, even wore layclothes.
A disgrace to have discarded all the magnificent Catholic vesture, etiquette, and symbolism. And replaced it with nothing.
Pontificalis Domus was penned in haste in a fit of modernism by who? Noe?
ReplyDelete"Ut sive sollicite" and "Pontificalis domus" are embarrassing documents. Pope Paul VI acted like an enlightenment and utilitarian despot, who sees only an alleged "usefulness" as primal right for subsistence. This acts shot down with a scratch of the pen centuries of an elaborated and organically evolved ceremonal, full of rich signs and symbols. The lack of any vestige of the old and time-honored ceremonial of the old sacred roman court has ironically lead to the coarse modern media cult of personality surrounding the modern papacies in their "pontifical house" after bl. John XXXIII Roncalli, who was the last pontiff who had an encompassing sentiment and genuine awareness
ReplyDeletefor the significance of rites and symbols.
Noe was a very big part of it. But also Bugnini, and some other radical priests.
ReplyDeletePaul VI was a radical at heart too, until almost the very end of his life....when he started to have very, very serious misgivings about the whole of Vatican II. This began around 1975. Much too late to torture himself with doubts, but Paul VI did so. And it ruined his health.
There needs to be a brief stating that, along with the liberation of the 1962 Missal, the clerical garb worn should also be "period". If I am not mistaken, a point was made by the curia that choir dress with train, tuffed fasciae, etc., were "no no's"; that current rubrics were to be observed. If we are going back to '62, gentlemen, then let it be across the board.
ReplyDelete-Donnacha