Wednesday, January 30, 2008

San Simeon Piccolo: A Small bit of History of a "Small" (Piccolo) Parish

Rinascimento Sacro has a story up about his recent visit to San Simeon Piccolo in Venice.

I've shown you images from this church a few times, but something I hadn't been familiar with is the history of the usus antiquior in this parish, attached to the person of one Don Siro Cisilino (1903-1987), a musicologist and former parish priest. It seems that celebration of the usus antiquior here goes well beyond the Fraternity of St. Peter's presence there and even prior to the original 1984 indult; a fact I was not familiar with.

Such scenarios manifest themselves from time to time in particular dioceses, involving individual diocesan priests -- Niafles in France was another.

Whatever one think of these scenarios, I find such things of historical interest as part of the chronicle of the usus antiquior movement following the Second Vatican Council, and so it was interesting to learn of Don Cisilino and more of the history of San Simeon Piccolo.



While on the topic, Rinascimento Sacro offers his images from his visit to this Venetian church.

More recent articles:

For more articles, see the NLM archives: