30 December 2017

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What knowing things "cookies" seem to be ...

... I was recently offered a full video of Pope Ratzinger's last Easter Sunday as occupant of the Roman See. How lovely to see him again; that devout and self-effacing manner ... but how weak he already looked. What a good illustration that Liturgy was of how the Novus Ordo can be done in a convincingly baroque idiom! If only that style had proved to be ... what is the word ... irreversible!

I was reminded of his use as a staff of his Anglican Cross. By 'Anglican' I mean, not that we gave it to him, but that it is a design once very popular in the C of E for Altar Crosses. Instead of a crucifixus attached to the Cross, there is an Agnus Dei in the middle. (Often, the four extremities of the Cross are marked by medallions of the four Evangelists.) My assumption has always been that in early twentieth century Middle Church Anglicanism, this seemed a little less in-your-face popish than a Crucifix.

Presumably, the design has medieval origins or analogies? Who knows about these things?

Does PF ever use the Anglican Cross?

7 comments:

Martin Browne OSB said...

Yes, he does. It’s one of a largish number that he employs but he certainly does still use it.

ccc said...

It's actually the older tradit in of the Pontiff. The crucifix was a Paul VI invention.

vetusta ecclesia said...

I think Paul vi was first Pope (in modern times?) to use a cross

Christophorus said...

Actually the cross was used since St. Martin of Tours - to whom the pope (by an ancient tradition) gave his crosier. It was only Paul VI that started to use it all the time -- like most bishops use the crosier.

The Saint Bede Studio said...

The Papal staff is called the ferula and the particular one you refer to was made for Blessed Pius IX and used by all of his successors until the 1960s. Pope Benedict also used this ferula, but the present Bishop of Rome has NOT, but another one which was made for Pope Benedict. The use of such a staff by the Bishop of Rome is quite ancient, but never was in the form of crucifix. Sometimes it was triple-branched. It was Paul VI who introduced the practice of the Pope using the staff in the same manner as a bishop's crozier.

Unknown said...

This blogger wrote 7 years ago an interesting article about papal ferulas:
http://giovannipaolomagno.blogspot.nl/2010/03/sheperds-staff.html
As @ccc said... Yes there are too many inventions happened in the 1960s...
As this inauspicious-looking cross which was designed by Italian Lello Scorzelli during the 1960s, introduced by pope Paul VI, indeed. Who used it for the first time at the closing Second Vatican Council, on December 8, 1965. In fact, in 1963 Paul VI had given Scorzelli a permanent job in Rome to design this and other “art” for the Vatican.
The inauspicious-looking Scorzelli cross bears some striking resemblance to the the crucifix drawn by Belgian “artist” Albert Servaes (d. 1966) as part of his “stations of the cross”, which were condemned by the Church in 1921 under Pope Benedict XV. Notice in particular the hanging head and the bent legs:
http://idlespeculations-terryprest.blogspot.nl/2008/02/banning-of-stations-of-cross.html

And last but not least information worthy attention is the day when this ferula has been broken. Incidentally, I was at that time there, as a pilgrim,...who was then, still, filled with a certain dose of optimism, what had to be changed in hope...
http://eponymousflower.blogspot.nl/2015/06/bent-cross-of-paul-vi-is-broken-but.html
http://www.lastampa.it/2015/06/06/vaticaninsider/eng/the-vatican/popes-pastoral-staff-is-taped-together-for-the-first-time-7NU6o7A1bCun0r4qM6jvTI/pagina.html
Ivan

Vincent said...

Yes, it has very early medieval origins; probably early Saxons (in England at least). Usually the design included 3 or 4 medallions on each of the ends of the cross beam, in the centre, and on the top beam. Traditionally, Popes didn't have crucifixes, they would have had the triple barred cross. I suspect that fell out of use a fairly long time ago though... Not sure when the crucifix as a papal ferula was introduced. Pope Francis initially switched between the Paul VI ferula and the much nicer BXVI one, but that seems to have been dropped quite quickly.