Today is the feast of St Norbert, the founder of the Premonstratensian Order, who died in 1134 as archbishop of Magdeburg, in the modern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, and was buried in the choir of his order’s local church. The city was one of the first to turn Protestant in the 16th-century, and although the Saint’s relics were not profaned, as were those of so many others, it was no longer possible for Catholics to venerate them. During the Thirty Years’ War, however, the abbot of Strahov, the Premonstratensian house in Prague, was able to recover them during a temporary Catholic occupation of the area, and bring them to back to his abbey, where they were officially installed on May 2nd, 1627, and have remained to this day.
The shrine of St Norbert in the choir of Strahov Abbey.
The Premonstratensians traditionally kept a feast on May 7th of the translation of St Norbert’s relics; the Matins lessons of the second nocturn state that when the original burial site was opened, the skeleton was found intact. These photographs were taken several years ago during another recognitio (verification) of the condition of the bones.
Here are some great old photographs of the shrine in Strahov Abbey, and of a procession held in Prague with the relics; they are not precisely dated, but František Kordač, who was Archbishop of Prague from 1919-31, is shown in the procession.
Today marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of His Holiness Pius XII, who was also elected Pope on this day in 1939, his 63th birthday; his papacy would be the 14th longest (among 266 thus far) in history, at 19 years, 7 months and one week. Here are some interesting videos of from reign, from the always interesting archives of the old newsreel company British Pathé.
The celebration of the 17th anniversary of his coronation, in 1956.
Our thanks to reader Gian Marco Talluto for sharing with us these pictures of the ordination of a bishop in the Byzantine Rite, which took place in Sicily on this day in 1938.
Giuseppe Perniciaro was born in Mezzojuso, in the province of Palermo, Sicily, on January 11, 1907. After studying at the Greek-Albanian Seminary in Palermo, he was a student at the Pontifical Greek College in Rome, where he attended the best Pontifical Universities; in 1928, finished his theology courses, and the following year, began his specialization in Oriental Ecclesiastical Sciences at the Pontifical Oriental Institute. On July 7, 1929, at the Church of Sant’ Atanasio in Rome, he was ordained a priest by Mons. Isaia Papadopoulos, Assessor of the Oriental Congregation. In 1932, he was called to take up the office of Rector of the Greek Albanian Seminary in Palermo, founded by Father Giorgio Guzzetta in 1734.
On October 26, 1937, following the creation of the Eparchy of Piana dei Greci by Pope Pius XI, Papas Giuseppe Perniciaro was elected, at only 30 years of age, Titular Bishop of Arbano, and auxiliary of the Archbishop of Palermo.
The following January 16, in the cathedral of St Demetrius, he was consecrated Bishop in the presence of Cardinal Luigi Lavitrano, archbishop of Palermo and apostolic administrator of Piana dei Greci, by Giovanni Mele, bishop of Lungro, assisted by Paolo Schirò, titular bishop of Bende (the last ordaining bishop of the Greek Rite in Sicily), and by Alessandro Evreinoff, titular bishop of Pario and ordaining bishop of the Greek Rite in Rome. During the same Liturgy, Monsignor Perniciaro conferred his first priestly ordination on deacon Matteo Sciambra from Contessa Entellina.
On July 12, 1967, after the death of Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini, Monsignor Perniciaro was appointed residential bishop of the Eparchy of Piana degli Albanesi. (The eparchy’s name was changed from Piana dei Greci to Albanesi for political reasons in 1941).
Monsignor Perniciaro actively participated as a Father of the Second Vatican Council as a member of both the Italian and Sicilian episcopal conferences. During his long episcopate he accompanied with prayer, work, and also with physical and spiritual suffering, the birth and development of the diocese of Piana, concluded his earthly mission on June 5, 1981.
Thanks to the site https://www.visitpiana.com/eparchia and the Facebook page of the parish of San Nicola di Mezzojuso for the biography and photos of the ordination of Mons. Perniciaro.
A contemporary newsreel report of this ceremony.
Initial procession
The prelates in the procession were in order: Fr Flaviano La Piana, Papas Lorenzo Perniciaro, Fr Isidoro Croce, Papas Giuseppe Perniciaro, Fr Odilone de Golenvau (rector of the Greek College) with Mons. Evreinoff, behind Mons. Schiró and Mons. Mele, and finally, Cardinal Lavitrano.
Cardinal Lavitrano
Consecration prayer, in the foreground Mons. Schirò and Mons. Evreinoff, Mons. Giovanni Mele can be seen.
Blessing performed by the new bishop
Final procession with the new bishop in the foreground
Thanks to Peter for bringing to my attention a new YouTube channel called Catholic Archive (https://www.youtube.com/@CatholicArchive/videos), which has only existed for a few weeks, but has already posted quite a lot of very interesting historical videos of liturgical celebrations and other events of Catholic interest. Here are a few examples.
The priestly ordination of Father (and future Cardinal) Avery Dulles, SJ, in 1956; he got his own newsreel because his father, John Foster Dulles, was Secretary of State. (His uncle Allen Dulles was at the same time head of the CIA; this fact is not mentioned.)
Mass celebrated in the ruins of the cathedral of Nagasaki, Japan, in 1949; the cathedral, which is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, is located less than a third of a mile from ground zero of the atomic bomb that was dropped on the city in 1945. (no soundtrack.)
Pope Pius XI proclaims the Extraordinary Jubilee of Human Redemption in 1933; His Holiness, one of the most politically astute men to sit on the throne of Peter in modern times, had no illusions as to whether the War to End All Wars had really done so, and the Jubilee was also proclaimed “that God most merciful might bring it about that the Holy Year ... may bring back peace to souls, due liberty to the Church in all places, and true harmony and prosperity to all peoples.” (from the Apostolic Constitution Quod nuper, the indiction of the Jubilee.)
The canonization of St Pius X, by Pius XII in 1954, the first canonization of a pope since that of Pius V over 240 years previous, with footage of a grand procession held through Rome on the following day.
Footage of the Holy Land taken at Christmastide of 1930, including Bethlehem, Nazareth and the River Jordan.
From the archives of British Pathé: on this day in 1939, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected to the Papacy, taking the name Pius XII; it was also also his 63th birthday. As is sometimes the case with these old newsreels, there are a few comic moments; note the gestures of the Cardinal (Camillo Caccia) who announces the new Pope’s name, and the weird distortion of Pius’ voice when he speaks into the microphone.
Just a few days ago, a YouTube channel posted this video, containing footage taken on the Holy Mountain of Mt Athos, the famous “monastic republic” on the peninsula of Thessaloniki in northern Greece, more than a century ago. The opening title is in French, and just says “Mt Athos, 1918. Hermitages and Monasteries.” At 8:40, a second title appears, also in French, “Easter procession, Iviron and Vatopedi”. (Iviron is the monastery of the Georgians, founded in the 980s; Vatopedi was founded slightly earlier, by disciples of the founder of monastic life on the peninsula, St Athanasius the Athonite.) The soundtrack, which is liturgical singing in Church Slavonic, is clearly not original, since pictures with sound were not invented until 9 years later.
We have previously shared a few films which show what life is like in modern times on Mt Athos, to whatever small degree the words “modern times” can be applied to it. One of these was originally broadcast on the CBS program 60 Minutes in 2011, but the post by which we shared it is now functionally useless, since the videos were embedded with the now-defunct Adobe Flash player. Happily, 60 Minutes reposted the piece to their YouTube channel just a couple of months ago, along with others covering Lourdes, the Ethiopian monastic complex at Lalibela, as well as the Vatican Library. Where the 1918 film shows nothing inside the churches of Mt Athos, (which I suspect the makers were formally prohibited from doing), 60 Minutes were allowed to bring their cameras inside and film the liturgy, giving us a very rare close look at the whole monastic life of the Orthodox Church, the liturgy, the buildings, the artistic treasures, and the tremendous natural beauty of the Athos peninsula.
For the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, here are some great historical images of the famous basilica in Mexico City that houses St Juan Diego’s tilma. Our thanks to the administrators of the Facebook page Tradicionalismo Católico for their kind permission to reproduce these.
The first Mass celebrated after the restoration of public worship in June of 1929, which had been interrupted during the Cristero Rebellion.
Today is the feast of St Norbert, the founder of the Premonstratensian Order, who died in 1134 as archbishop of Magdeburg, in the modern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, and was buried in the choir of his order’s local church. The city was one of the first to turn Protestant in the 16th-century, and although the Saint’s relics were not profaned, as were those of so many others, it was no longer possible for Catholics to venerate them. During the Thirty Years’ War, however, the abbot of Strahov, the Premonstratensian house in Prague, was able to recover them during a temporary Catholic occupation of the area, and bring them to back to his abbey, where they were officially installed on May 2nd, 1627, and have remained to this day.
A Facebook page dedicated to the various orders and congregations of Augustinian Canons Regular, including the Premonstratensians, published these photographs of the actual bones of St Norbert, which we share by the kind permission of Dom Jakobus, a canon of Herzogenburg Abbey in Austria, who administers the page. (It is frequently updated with many interesting pictures, both modern and historical, of the canons and their liturgies.)
The shrine of St Norbert in the choir of Strahov Abbey.
The Premonstratensians traditionally kept a feast on May 7th of the translation of St Norbert’s relics; the Matins lessons of the second nocturn state that when the original burial site was opened, the skeleton was found intact.
Here are some great old photographs of the shrine in Strahov Abbey, and of a procession held in Prague with the relics; they are not precisely dated, but František Kordač, who was Archbishop of Prague from 1919-31, is shown in the procession.
On November 4, 1962, during the first session of the recently convened ecumenical council, Giovanni Battista Cardinal Montini, the archbishop of Milan, celebrated a solemn Pontifical Mass in the Ambrosian Rite in St Peter’s Basilica for the feast of St Charles Borromeo. This was done as a Mass coram Summo Pontifice, on the fourth anniversary of St John XXIII’s coronation, at the temporary altar set up for solemn celebrations during the council, since the use of the high altar is reserved to the Pope.
The Pope’s solemn entrance into the basilica.
Card. Giulio Bevilacqua recounts in his memoires that at the consistory held on December 15, 1958, Pope John had said to the newly created Card. Montini that among his duties as the first of his new cardinals, he was to come to Rome each year and sing a Mass for the Pope on the anniversary of his coronation. (This, however, would be the last such occasion, since John XXIII died the following June 3.) The Pope delivered a homily on the sermons of St Charles during the diocesan synods and provincial councils which he held, recommending them for reading and meditation. As a sign of his gratitude, the Pope also gave Card. Montini a diamond and aquamarine pectoral cross, now kept in the treasury of Milan Cathedral, together with a photograph of the Pope signed thus: “Pro Missa bene cantata Ritu Ambrosiano a venerabili Fratre Archiepiscopo Mediolanensi in die natalis Papæ IV Nov. 1962”. (For a Mass well-sung in the Ambrosian Rite by our venerable brother the archbishop of Milan, on the Pope’s (coronation) anniversary, Nov. 4, 1962.) A year later, as a reminder of Pope John’s aforementioned homily, the former archbishop of Milan, now elected Pope with the name Paul VI, had the sermons of St Charles republished, and given as a gift to the Council Fathers. (Many thanks to Nicola de’ Grandi for sharing these photos and write-up with us.)
Any Mass sung in the Ambrosian Rite (whether pontifical, solemn or just a missa cantata) normally begins with a procession. The celebrant and ministers enter to the singing of a chant called a Psallendum, which is repeated from the end of Lauds. At the entrance to the sanctuary, the bearer of the processional cross (who would be just outside this photograph to the right) stops and turns towards the celebrant, while the servers and assistants form two rows facing each other between him and the cross. A hymn is sung, then 12 Kyrie eleisons (6 low and 6 high), and another Psallendum, with Gloria Patri, Sicut erat; at Gloria Patri, all bow to the Cross, at Sicut erat, to the celebrant, and the procession enters the sanctuary as the Psallendum is repeated. (In this unusual case, things would have been arranged somewhat differently, so that the Cardinal would not turn his back to the Pope.)
The prayers at the foot of the altar; Mons Enrico Dante, long-time Papal Master of Ceremonies, is seen kneeling next to the Pope.
Incensation of the altar
At the beginning of the Mass, either the reading of the Ingressa (the Ambrosian equivalent of the Introit), or the chanting of the first prayer.
otre Dame Parish in New Hyde Park, New York, recently published to its Facebook page some photos of the church’s dedication ceremony, which took place on June 27, 1959. The rite was celebrated by H.E. Walter Kellenberg, who was served as the first bishop of Rockville Center, New York, from the time of the diocese’s creation in April of 1957 until his retirement in May of 1976. Our thanks to the parish for their kind permission to reproduce these images, which were taken by parishioner Bill F. Heimbuch, and provided to the parish by his son Bill G. Heimbuch. Like so many churches, Notre Dame later underwent a rather unfortunate renovation; plans are underway to undo it, and we will be sharing some information about that next week.
Since we just passed the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and today celebrate the octave of Her Immaculate Conception, here are some great historical images of the famous basilica in Mexico City that houses St Juan Diego’s tilma. Our thanks to the administrators of the Facebook page Tradicionalismo Católico for their kind permission to reproduce these.
The first Mass celebrated after the restoration of public worship in June of 1929, which had been interrupted during the Cristero Rebellion.
Today is the anniversary of the death in 1961 of Domenico Cardinal Tardini, the Vatican Secretary of State under Pope St John XXIII. Born in Rome in 1888, and ordained a priest in 1912, he served in the Curia under Pope Pius XI as a close collaborator of the Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, a role in which he continued when the latter was elected Pope in 1939. In 1952, he was made Pro-Secretary of State for (Extraordinary) Foreign Affairs. Shortly after Pius XII’s death in 1958, John XXIII made him Secretary of State, and raised him to the cardinalate; he was ordained a bishop at the end of the year.
From the always-interesting YouTube channel of British Pathé, here is some archival footage, without soundtrack, of the funeral ceremonies held in St Peter’s Basilica, a Mass coram Summo Pontifice, followed by the Absolution at the catafalque celebrated by the Pope himself.
A few points of interest: throughout the ceremony, the Pope is accompanied by Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, whom he had appointed Secretary of the Holy Office, and walking in front of the Pope at the beginning is his Master of Ceremonies, the famous Mons. Enrico Dante. The ceremony is held not at the main altar, but in the right (north) transept, dedicated to Ss Processus and Martinian; starting at 1:44, we see the three chapels of the transept covered over with black drapes, and the central one decorated with a large plain cross. At 2:25, we briefly see the Elevation of the Host during the Mass, which is celebrated at a temporary (but very beautiful) altar set up in front of the drape. The Absolution begins at 2:34; notice how Mons. Dante gestures to people to stand up as he leads the Pope to his place at the foot of the catafalque.
YouTube’s suggestion algorithm also recommended to my attention this footage (once again, archival material without soundtrack), taken in January of 1962, of meetings held in the Apostolic Palace in those strangely perfervid years between the calling of the most recent ecumenical council and its actual beginning.
At 0:21, we see a fresco of St Raymond of Penyafort, the Patron Saint of canon lawyers, presenting his collection of Decretals, the great canon law book of the Middle Ages, to Pope Gregory IX, ca. 1232. At 0:56, we see a group of bishops and cardinals, including Card. Ottaviani and Mons. Dante once again, and at 1:26, Marcel Lefebvre, then newly appointed as Archbishop of Tulle in France; he would serve in this office for less then seventh months, resigning it to take up the role of Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit. At 1:33, we see Giovanni Cardinal Montini, the Archbishop of Milan and future Pope Paul VI, and then Eugène Cardinal Tisserant, dean of the College of Cardinals, and retired Secretary of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. The rest of the footage is of a meeting at which Card. Tisserant presides.
A reader in Slovenia very kindly sent us some pictures which he scanned out of an old book about the Carthusian Monastery of Pleterje, located in a village called Drča about 50 miles to the west-south-west of the capital, Ljubljana. Originally founded as a Charterhouse by a local count at the beginning of the 15th century, it was turned over to the Jesuits at the end of the 16th. With the suppression of the latter in the 1770s, it became first state property, then private, until the Carthusians were able to repurchase in 1899 it and reestablish it as a monastery; it is now the only functioning Charterhouse in Slovenia. These photos date to the date to the year 1938.
Our thanks to a reader for sharing with us these scans of some souvenir postcards which he found among the personal effects of his great-uncle, who served with the Texas-based 36th Infantry Division in World War II during the liberation of Italy. Since the invasion went up the peninsula, I am posting them in geographical order, Sicily first, followed by the shrine of the Virgin Mary at Pompei, and lastly Rome.
The 12th-century apsidal mosaic of the cathedral of Monreale, Sicily.
The sanctuary seen from just outside the altar-rail.
The chapel of the Crucifix.
The Capuchin church of Palermo is famous for its crypt, which houses the mortal remains of about 8000 people, over 1200 of whom are mummified; an unforgettable reminder of the ultimate reality of our life in this world.
In the year 1220, Pope Honorius III invited St Dominic to take up residence at the ancient Roman basilica of St Sabina on the Aventine hill; the church was officially transferred to the Order of Preachers two years later, and has been run by them ever since. Within the convent next to the church is the cell of St Dominic, long since converted into a chapel; Fr Lawrence Lew recently discovered this postcard, which shows what it looked like in 1934.
The inscription on the marble banderole reads as follows: “Give heed, visitor; in this place the most holy men Dominic, Francis and Angelus the Carmelite pass the night in watching and divine conversations.” (The historical accuracy of this is debatable.)
Here is a recent photograph of the chapel by Father Lew himself; the roofbeams seen above the altar are original to St Dominic’s time.
