Greetings to you all! As you may or may not know, I have been in Rome since June 2 in order to study with Fr. Reginald Foster, the world-renowned Vatican Latinist from Milwaukee. I thank you for your prayers regarding this trip and look forward to sharing with you something of what I have experienced here. Nor have you been forgotten in my prayers at the “big name,” big-indulgence churches here.

So where to begin? Despite all the gloomy naysaying you may have heard from some quarters, Rome is still the place to go for a Catholic seeking testimonies and monuments of the Faith. I have venerated the relics of saints and martyrs I read about in Fr. Lord’s picture books when I was barely able to read. Every turn of the street — wrong turns especially — and every side chapel opens up a vista into an historical event perhaps two millennia old, into a divine reality perhaps never incarnated in human art and history so thoroughly as in this City. So in case you ever get the opportunity to spend the summer in the Eternal City, take it immediately. I’ll have to write up most of my stuff for the blog when I am back in the States and can post the photos (including the one of His Holiness from ten feet away, and the ones of the famous statue of St. Peter wearing the Papal Tiara). Here’s the scoop for the time being.

First, Fr. Foster (who prefers to be called Reggie) provides us with numerous insights into Vatican affairs. He actually worked on the final version of the motu proprio, but apparently only in the week before its publication. However, there is really not much more to say on that end, like it or not. Academically, of course, the class itself is wonderful. I recommend it for anyone who is ready for serious Latin studies . . . and has the time and resources for eight weeks abroad.

With that out of the way (in Latin, what construction would you use here?), we can move on to the highlight of the Roman summer: the Pallium Mass on June 29, the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. In case you do not know, every year the new metropolitan archbishops of the Latin Rite receive the pallium, a special white woolen mantle with black crosses, from the Pope. It is scarf-like and consists of a ring of cloth with one descending strip in front and one in back. The pallia spend the Vigil of the Solemnity in a casket placed in St. Peter’s tomb below the high altar of the basilica. Then at the Mass the Pope places it around the archbishop’s shoulders. The equivalent garment in the Byzantine Rite is called the omophorion, and there the patriarch gives it to metropolitans. A Romanian-Rite Catholic in our class told me that both the pallium and omophorion are made of wool in order to symbolize the lost sheep which the metropolitan, in imitation of Christ the Good Shepherd (i.e. Pastor), carries on his shoulder.

Now Fr. Foster tends to schedule field trips on Sundays and feast days, which can make reaching Mass problematic. For the day in question, he scheduled a trip to Arpinum, birthplace of Marius (a famous Roman general) and Cicero. There are several traditionally-minded folks in the class, including a young Benedictine priest and a young lady who is discerning a vocation. When this young lady procured five tickets to the Mass in St. Peter’s, there was no way any of us was going to turn that down for some dead pagans. We were joined by a theology grad student from my alma mater, Marquette, and an open-minded Lutheran seminarian. During our long wait within the basilica, two of my companions shared their 1970s breviaries with me; this was my first time saying the Liturgy of the Hours in any form. Just before Mass, Cardinals Arinze and Bertone passed by, as did other prelates. (Speaking of Bertone, I noticed copies of Socci’s “Fourth Secret” for sale in a bookshop . . .) We were very close to the aisle, so the Pope passed by within several feet. Indeed, our priest-friend shoved his Rosary within inches of the Holy Father during the recessional, by which effort he gained a blessing.

The prayers and hymns in honor of St. Peter and Paul were outstanding (no doubt carryovers from the Old Rite!). Two pleasant surprises were 1) the absence of a distinct prayer for the local ordinary, who happens to be the Pope, and 2) the fact that the prayer for the Pope was said in the first person. This simply had not occurred to me in advance. And, though of course the the Blessed Eucharist is always and everywhere the same undivided Lord, it is neat to say that one has received the Body of Christ consecrated by His very own Vicar.

Okay, now some whining. The liturgy itself could have been better. Of course, the readings were in several vernaculars by laypersons, with a woman, sans veil, for the first one. And the prayers of the faithful were in seven or eight vernaculars. There was almost no aisle space to reach the priest who administered the Blessed Sacrament, so we had to stack chairs and squeeze past each other in a typical Italian Communion line shoving match. At some point halfway through the delivery of the pallia a contingent starting cheering for its metropolitan. A domino effect took hold, and soon it was like a high school commencement with scattered hoots as each metropolitan assumed the
blessed pallium.

The schismatic patriarch of Constantinople sent some observers. The role of Sts. Peter and Paul in founding the Church of Rome corresponds to that of St. Andrew in Byzantium. As the Holy Father spent the feast of Peter’s brother there last year, the patriarch reciprocated via his delegates. So the Greeks stole some of the thunder from the new metropolitans.

Among the latter was the new Primate of Poland, Archbishop Nycz of Warsaw. He, of course, took the place of the disgraced Wielgus, who was forced to resign after his former collaboration with the Communist secret police was revealed. Also there was Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa, worthy successor to Cardinal Siri of “hypothesis” fame. Bagnasco is the brave head of the Italian episcopal conference who received death threats for publicly opposing sexual deviancy.

In the persons of the metropolitans and in their contingents among the audience, it seemed all the world was represented. The Mexican ladies seated next to us were quite fervent in their devotion to their new archbishop. After Mass, a group of smartly-dressed South Africans in the piazza waved palm leaves while chanting jubilantly in their native tongue a song which no doubt celebrated the continued Apostolic Succession in their homeland. All the world was there with one very notable exception, that is: the People’s Republic of China. But Fr. Reggie, self-professed Maoist that he is, reached into his briefcase one day in class to give us a sample of the Latin in the top secret draft of Pope’s forthcoming letter to the Chinese. (That letter has since been signed and published.)

Later my priest-friend (let’s call him Fr. Placidus) and I happened to run into Sean Cardinal O’Malley (wearing his friar’s robe) on the Via della Conciliazone. The blogosphere says that he was here with Archbishop Burke as part of the American delegation to discuss the Motu Proprio before its publication. Both of us kissed his ring. I don’t know what contorted look I had on my face, as I was struggling with the impulse to tell O’Malley not to close Holy Trinity Parish, the Indult center in Boston. Fr. Placidus briefly chatted with the Card. about his monastery and class with Fr. Foster, whom O’Malley highly recommended for his Latin acumen (as though he could do otherwise!). Just as my priest-friend was about to ask about the Motu Proprio, His Eminence’s cell phone rang and ended our brief interview. (Oddly, at St. Mary Major’s the day before I espied O’Malley’s predecessor in Boston, Cardinal Law, from the distance of perhaps twenty feet. He was entering the basilica by a side entrance, as he is its Archpriest now.)

At the time we ran into O’Malley, Fr. Placidus and I were returning to the basilica to check out the statue of St. Peter from a closer distance. In honor of the Solemnity, it was decked out in full pontificals with the Tiara of old (visible via the link on the blog that a member of the Society posted at the time). While there, we caught Vespers at the Altar of the Chair in the apse of St. Peter’s. The altar is called that since it houses the chair St. Peter pontificated from during his years at Rome. A cardinal and a group of bishops, enshrouded in a cloud of incense, descended into the Confessio to venerate the Tomb of St. Peter at one point. A most impressive end to a most impressive day — which was
also the feast of one of my patron saints, by the way.

Hopefully, this message has been of some use, or at least interest, to you. God bless, and please remember me in your prayers two weeks from now when I travel home.