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ProVobis
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Are they kidding? Judging by the Royal Weddings, the entire planet will be watching the next coronation in the UK. There are three in line for the Kingship, which they haven’t had in over 60 years.
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ChaosGamma
Guest
Straw-man alert! “Those traditionalists think that just going back to the way things were before Vatican II will magically bring millions of people back to the Church and we’ll have world peace.”
I disagree.
Sure, a priest could celebrate Mass in a dirty shack with some bread crumbs and plastic cup of wine. Given the choice though, would you really rather have that every week instead of a liturgy in an actual church building? I think not.
The “window dressing” may not necessarily be essential to the faith, but it’s not like it just came about because some guys sat around and thought, “Hey, it’d look really cool if we put this big pointy hat on the Pope.” All these things developed because they, in some manner, pass on and reinforce the Church’s teachings. Can they be done away with? Sure, technically. Technically we could also stop reciting the Creed at Mass and stop genuflecting towards the Tabernacle and the Pope could wear jeans and a T-shirt and ride around in the back of a pickup truck. But I think most of us would recognize that somewhere we’d start losing important truths. A beautiful and reverent liturgy, by itself, isn’t going to magically cause people to start believing in the Real Presence again. I don’t think it will hurt. Sloppy, irreverent liturgy, by itself, didn’t make people stop believing in the Real Presence. It didn’t help.
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thephilosopher6
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The Papal Coronation was a beautiful ceremony and there is nothing stopping the current Pope from bringing it back. In fact, the Pope can bring back and wear the Papal Tiara when ever he wants. Pope Benedict XVI was actually given a Papal Tiara, though he never wore it.
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The Papal Tiara was never actually technically apart of the liturgy though. It was worn more to put emphasis on the fact that the Pope is a king. Modern Popes decide not to wear it to deemphasize the fact that the Pope is a king and to put more emphasis on Jesus being King. Also, as Jesus said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.” - Matthew 20:25-27
I think it would be interesting to bring the ceremony and the Papal Tiara back. I’m not really for or against it though.
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The Papal Tiara was never actually technically apart of the liturgy though. It was worn more to put emphasis on the fact that the Pope is a king. Modern Popes decide not to wear it to deemphasize the fact that the Pope is a king and to put more emphasis on Jesus being King. Also, as Jesus said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.” - Matthew 20:25-27
I think it would be interesting to bring the ceremony and the Papal Tiara back. I’m not really for or against it though.
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ChaosGamma
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I do wonder what it feels like having that thing on your head. It looks huge.
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Kurisu35712
Guest
Speaking as an architecture student, both churches are beautiful, but in different ways. No architect wants to see their own designs be the only ones present in the world. Likewise, no one style of church is adequate to express the beauty, glory, humility, simplicity, complexity, extravagance, generosity, and majesty of God.
I don’t want to hijack this into an “amazing pictures of church interiors” thread, but PM me if you want to see some pretty amazing ones.
I’m taking a Baroque and Rococo architecture history class, and while I would love to see a revival of Baroque styles and Counter-Reformation ideology, I don’t think bringing back the papal coronation is prudent. As stupid as it is, I still hear people say things like, if the Church cares so much about the poor, why doesn’t it donate the trillions of dollars it has? Because most of that comes from property, churches, and priceless items that form the basis of Western European history, art, music, architecture, and philosophy, maybe, and because selling the statues the Vatican preserves from ancient Rome and Greece would make them unavailable to regular people, maybe. I dunno! /sarc.
I do think bringing back that aspect of ceremony to the Church would turn people away. Not Catholics obviously, but regular people who would see it as the Church being out of touch with the poor, out of touch with modern society, and so on. Not that we should be part of modern society, but just that, in an era of republics and constitutional monarchies at best, a papal coronation would just be foreign and too showy. Those outside the Church have far more respect for popes who emulate humility and poverty of spirit than they would for a pope who, to them, would be declaring himself a king.
As I said though, I’m so tired of Modernism. It should have died 30 years ago. I want a Baroque revival! Luckily the generation of architects between the prevailing style now and my own is teaching us their own ideas of the grotesque (which refers to grotto-like in the original meaning) and exuberant. Mark Foster Gage is a pretty good example, though there are many others.
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Kurisu35712
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Again, as an architecture student, I agree with you. There is beauty inherent in both styles, and we honestly need to have both. You might appreciate the Cistercian Abbey at Fontenay. And seriously, that argument has been around since before Abbot Suger and St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Both have merits, and honestly, I will fight anyone who tries to argue that architecture should only adhere to one style.
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Kurisu35712
Guest
A highly ornamented church, for one, creates a sense of affect through architecture, art, sculpture, and emotional impact that serves the purpose of drawing the viewer closer to God, and helps them to focus their attention on God through use of images, light, shadow, space, and so on. I could write a thesis on the importance of the emotional and psychological impacts of architectural spaces.
That said, a simple and plain church, such as the one at the Abbey at Fontenay, is particularly suited for more meditative people. It doesn’t provide distractions from their more interior focus on God, prayer, meditation, and contemplation. The space itself, however, is still open, with aisles, an apse, vaulted ceilings, and windows which all serve to mentally focus the visitor on thoughts of Heaven, peace, the sky, eternity, and so on.
Architecture is a space that serves the function of a building hospitable to humans and also an affective object in the world that is capable of evoking emotional, physical, mental, psychological, and artistic responses. A coronation is a ceremony that indicates the bestowing of temporal and monarchial power. To a society that functions under a monarchy, where the monarch is essentially ordained by God to rule over a people, a papal coronation makes a lot of sense. The Pope is the leader of the Church on earth, and Christ’s representative for us. Also, coronations happened at a time when the pope held a lot of direct political power and influence.
The reason bringing back papal coronation is imprudent, at least to me, is in large part due to the fact that since the American, French, and Russian revolutions, among others, society has overthrown its kings and queens. We are no longer part of the British kingdom, nor are we subject to their rule. The French people wanted their lavish royalty out, and did so quite forcefully, same with the czars in Russia. Also, widespread colonialism throughout history has engendered a lot of dislike for monarchial systems in general. In short, the idea of earthly royalty has been tainted by terrible rulers. With very few exceptions, a lot of people view a monarchy as an easily corrupted and unfair system of government. Easily corrupted and unfair are not things we want our popes associated with.
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TimothyH
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Agreed.
The last thing the world needs now is a religious leader wearing a gold crown being carried on a throne.
Bishops in Germany with solid marble bathtubs and archbishops here in the US building 2.2 million dollar mansions… Secular nonsense.
We need exactly the opposite, someone like St. Francis or St. Maximilian Kolbe. The whole world would convert to Catholicism.
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ProVobis
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With a little bit of gold, however…
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TimothyH
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Forget the gold crown…
The Italian bicycle maker Colnago gave St. Pope John Paul II a gold racing bicycle.
The Holy Father was an avid cyclist and accepted the bike, displayed it for one year, and then gave it back, requesting instead something more modest that he could ride around Castel Gondolfo.
italiancyclingjournal.blogspot.com/2010_11_30_archive.html
The Italian bicycle maker Colnago gave St. Pope John Paul II a gold racing bicycle.
The Holy Father was an avid cyclist and accepted the bike, displayed it for one year, and then gave it back, requesting instead something more modest that he could ride around Castel Gondolfo.
italiancyclingjournal.blogspot.com/2010_11_30_archive.html
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Thorolfr
Guest
The possible negative publicity from popes wearing tiaras reminds me of the meme I’ve seen on the Internet sometimes of a pope sitting in a big golden throne with the caption: “I will pray for the poor and those less fortunate from my golden throne.”
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Thomas_Casey
Guest
off track
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