Prayers for the Emperor during Holy Week (pre-1955 Masses)

[FrDavid96]

If there’s anyone reading this thread who has an old Missal printed anywhere in the British Empire, please post what it says. I know we’re all curious now.

I bet Don Ruggerro would have some insights for us.

If anyone on CAF has a early 20th century copy of the Roman Missal used in the British Empire, my money says it would be him.

 

[Vouthon]

I’ve found a reference to this curious retention of a prayer for the Roman Emperor in this book from 1943. The author notes:

books.google.co.uk/books?id=kGPFtM2i854C&pg=PA351&dq=good+friday+prayer+emperor&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjkm7nl6fTQAhVnDcAKHflPDhEQ6AEILzAE#v=onepage&q=good%20friday%20prayer%20emperor&f=false

**"…Yet just as the Pope was not a purely spiritual ruler the office of the Holy Roman Emperor had also its spiritual aspects. The Church has never officially abolished the prayer in the Good Friday “Mass” for the Holy Roman Emperor, a prayer which would also be found in missals printed in the United States, China or Ireland. It runs as follows…The legal as well as the physical descendant of the Roman Emperors is Otto, archduke of Austria…" **

Of course, it still leaves unanswered the question as to why folks would keep printing missals with these prayers unmodified in light of the fact that the office of Holy Roman Emperor was long defunct. The decision to print it in the U.S., the world’s most famous republic, strikes me as the most odd decision. I can understand - sort of - printing it within the British Empire (even though it refers to the Roman Caesar rather than the British monarch) but a republic? Hmm…

And if the author above is correct, these prayers were also published in missals in China, then a Republic under the Nationalist Kuomintang.

It’s all very anachronistic.

 

[twf]

I’ve found a reference to this curious retention of a prayer for the Roman Emperor in this book from 1943. The author notes:

books.google.co.uk/books?id=kGPFtM2i854C&pg=PA351&dq=good+friday+prayer+emperor&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjkm7nl6fTQAhVnDcAKHflPDhEQ6AEILzAE#v=onepage&q=good%20friday%20prayer%20emperor&f=false

Of course, it still leaves unanswered the question as to why folks would keep printing missals with these prayers unmodified in light of the fact that the office of Holy Roman Emperor was long defunct. The decision to print it in the U.S., the world’s most famous republic, strikes me as the most odd decision. I can understand - sort of - printing it within the British Empire (even though it refers to the Roman Caesar rather than the British monarch) but a republic? Hmm…

And if the author above is correct, these prayers were also published in missals in China, then a Republic under the Nationalist Kuomintang.

It’s all very anachronistic.

Everyone knows that God is a monarchist. Americans may be saved, but only if invincibly ignorant of the disordered nature of republics…

 

[Vouthon]

Everyone knows that God is a monarchist. Americans may be saved, but only if invincibly ignorant of the disordered nature of republics…

 

[Vouthon]

According to this book, Emperor Napoleon III requested and received papal approval for the “imperial prayers” to be said on his behalf during his reign in the mid-nineteenth century. Apparently he styled himself as the August Emperor of Christendom who would bring the heathen under his benevolent rule or something to that effect (I am no fan of hubris)

books.google.co.uk/books?id=v0sMJg-DDbMC&pg=PA38&dq=good+friday+prayer+emperor&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiP0IWe7vTQAhWjJcAKHXhSBh84ChDoAQhJMAU#v=onepage&q=good%20friday%20prayer%20emperor&f=false

**"…The Holy Roman Emperor, as the temporal protector of the Pope and civil leader of Christendom, had particular prayers offered for him throughout the Latin Catholic world: He was mentioned in the canon of the mass, in the prayers for Good Friday and Holy Saturday, and in a special proper mass…

When Napoleon III assumed the crown [in France], he adopted as many of the trappings of monarchy as he could, and these included the specifically religious ones. He claimed the right to defend the Catholics of the Ottoman Empire (and especially those holy places in Palestine under Catholic jurisdiction). The emperor was a friend to French religious orders and reintroduced such things as the Catholic military chaplaincy and masses for the opening of parliament. There can be no doubt that he was personally religious. So it was that he petitioned the Holy See to have all of the imperial prayers in the missal offered on his own behalf. With the 1857 bull Imperii Galliarum**, Pius IX conceded these indisputable signs of imperial authenticity to Napoleon…"

It seems - if this book can be trusted as a source, which I don’t know if it can - (unless I am reading this the wrong way) that Napoleon III had to be granted some special dispensation from the Holy Father to have the “imperial prayers”, intended for the defunct Roman Emperor, recited instead in his name.

 

[SyroMalankara]

In India, the prayers would be directed to the local King and Maharaja (Emperor) before the British occupation, not sure who was reference when they took over, as they were pretty antiCatholic

 

[BenP]

I’m not an expert on these specific details, if I have time later I’ll check Fortesque or other ceremonials to see if there is any reference.

Prior to Vatican II the church was very slow to officially change liturgical texts (I think the 1962 missale or pontificale rubrics make mention of things like the sort of shoe buckles a prelate should use)

(side note the penciled in ‘St Joseph’ means it was used after late 1962)

Additionally- If this makes you uncomfortable it may be good for you to read what various 19th and early 20th century popes taught about monarchy. The replacement of Christian states with secularist democracy’s wasn’t exactly smiled upon.

 

[twf]

I’m not an expert on these specific details, if I have time later I’ll check Fortesque or other ceremonials to see if there is any reference.

Prior to Vatican II the church was very slow to officially change liturgical texts (I think the 1962 missale or pontificale rubrics make mention of things like the sort of shoe buckles a prelate should use)

(side note the penciled in ‘St Joseph’ means it was used after late 1962)

Additionally- If this makes you uncomfortable it may be good for you to read what various 19th and early 20th century popes taught about monarchy. The replacement of Christian states with secularist democracy’s wasn’t exactly smiled upon.

Yes, for most of Church history, the Church strongly promoted Christian nations under Christian monarchs. Prior to Vatican II, religious freedom was not at all considered a right to be taken for granted…just the opposite. (Of course it is still objectively sinful to choose any faith other than Catholicism, but the Church no longer encourages states to promote or favor Christianity).

 

[Vouthon]

Yes, for most of Church history, the Church strongly promoted Christian nations under Christian monarchs. Prior to Vatican II, religious freedom was not at all considered a right to be taken for granted…just the opposite. (Of course it is still objectively sinful to choose any faith other than Catholicism, but the Church no longer encourages states to promote or favor Christianity).

This refers to something a bit grander than a mere “monarch” as head of state over a single nation, to be fair. It conjures up the image of an empire which - at least nominally - exerts some kind of suzerainty over international Christendom as a whole.

I must admit that, while I was aware of the prominence of this idea in Christian thought throughout the ages - e.g. in the Constanian era under the late Roman Empire, the medieval Carolingians and in the works of the Italian Florentine poet Dante - I honestly never knew nor expected it to feature in any discernible way in the liturgy.

This has come as a real surprise to me. I actually re-read those passages in the missal numerous times, partially disbelieving what I had actually read. I would not have thought that the Church paid this pious, largely theoretical and quite utopian vision of a peaceable, imperial Res publica christiana - which never really transpired in practice, at least in terms of its global ambitions - such honorific mention during actual Masses.

I had been under the impression that it was just a medieval cultural zeitgeist - folklore, imperial braggadoccio on behalf of the volatile rule of the German Emperors. I had never thought of it in a liturgical context, with Catholics actually praying for it to be expanded and inaugurate universal peace on earth.

It strikes me almost as a sort of Christian answer to the Islamic ‘Caliphate’.

Dont get me wrong, the Holy Roman Empire was a fascinating quasi-federal political structure (a bit like the modern EU) that bound central Europe together in a loose, porous union prefixed upon a common Christian cultural matrix…but did Catholics really expect it to become ‘universalised’ as the prayers seem to infer?

 

[twf]

This refers to something a bit grander than a mere “monarch” as head of state over a single nation, to be fair. It conjures up the image of an empire which - at least nominally - exerts some kind of suzerainty over international Christendom as a whole.

I must admit that, while I was aware of the prominence of this idea in Christian thought throughout the ages - e.g. in the Constanian era under the late Roman Empire, the medieval Carolingians and in the works of the Italian Florentine poet Dante - I honestly never knew nor expected it to feature in any discernible way in the liturgy.

This has come as a real surprise to me. I actually re-read those passages in the missal numerous times, partially disbelieving what I had actually read. I would not have thought that the Church paid this pious, largely theoretical and quite utopian vision of a peaceable, imperial Res publica christiana - which never really transpired in practice, at least in terms of its global ambitions - such honorific mention during actual Masses.

I had been under the impression that it was just a medieval cultural zeitgeist - folklore, imperial braggadoccio on behalf of the volatile rule of the German Emperors. I had never thought of it in a liturgical context, with Catholics actually praying for it to be expanded and inaugurate universal peace on earth.

It strikes me almost as a sort of Christian answer to the Islamic ‘Caliphate’.

Dont get me wrong, the Holy Roman Empire was a fascinating quasi-federal political structure (a bit like the modern EU) that bound central Europe together in a loose, porous union prefixed upon a common Christian cultural matrix…but did Catholics really expect it to become ‘universalised’ as the prayers seem to infer?

As you say, the liturgical texts seem to imply that the answer to your question is “yes”. While the trappings of Imperial Rome are now gone, recent popes have continued to preach this “ideal”. Pope Benedict spoke of the need for a global authority, with real teeth (unlike the UN), to maintain peace and protect the weak.
I am certain that the Byzantine liturgy would espouse the same ideas. For over a thousand years, through most of the Middle Ages, the Christian East truly had a Christian Emperor who truly ruled a Roman Empire. I know there was definitely a belief in some quarters, at least in the early Middle Ages, that the Byzantine Emperor was the “vicar of Christ” on earth. In fact, I believe this specific title was applied to the Byzantine Emperors long before it was applied to the Pope of Rome in the West.

 

[Vouthon]

As you say, the liturgical texts seem to imply that the answer to your question is “yes”. While the trappings of Imperial Rome are now gone, recent popes have continued to preach this “ideal”. Pope Benedict spoke of the need for a global authority, with real teeth (unlike the UN), to maintain peace and protect the weak.
I am certain that the Byzantine liturgy would espouse the same ideas. For over a thousand years, through most of the Middle Ages, the Christian East truly had a Christian Emperor who truly ruled a Roman Empire. I know there was definitely a belief in some quarters, at least in the early Middle Ages, that the Byzantine Emperor was the “vicar of Christ” on earth. In fact, I believe this specific title was applied to the Byzantine Emperors long before it was applied to the Pope of Rome in the West.

Yes - it is interesting that you link this to the modern papal teaching in the social encyclicals on the need for a “world political authority”.

Interesting because this term first originated in its modern form under the pontificate of Pius XII, from what I can tell, who was the pontiff that finally removed the “imperial prayers” officially from the liturgy.

One would almost think that he removed the imperial concept only to re-fashion it for a modern audience in a secular, more inclusive “republican” form that would be more palatable to and commensurate with contemporary society - but still with the same underlying doctrinal intent.

Consider his famous 1944 Christmas speech:

papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12XMAS.HTM

**Democracy and a Lasting Peace

1944 Christmas Message of His Holiness Pope Pius XII

NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF AN EFFECTIVE PEACE SETTLEMENT UNITY OF MANKIND AND SOCIETY OF PEOPLES**

1. We were anxious, Beloved Sons and Daughters, to take the occasion of Christmastide to point out along what lines a democracy befitting human dignity can, in harmony with the law of nature and the designs of God as manifested in Revelation, secure happy results. Indeed, We are deeply convinced of the supreme importance of this problem for the peaceful progress of mankind…

1. But how far will the representatives and pioneers of democracy be inspired in their deliberations by the conviction that the absolute order of beings and purposes, of which **We have repeatedly spoken, comprises also, as a moral necessity and the crowning of social development, the unity of mankind and of the family of peoples?

1. On the recognition of this principle hangs the future of the peace.** No world reform, no peace guarantee can abstract from it without being weakened and without being untrue to itself.

1. If, on the other hand, this same moral necessity were to find its realization in a society of peoples which succeeded in eliminating the structural defects and shortcomings of former systems, then the majesty of that order would regulate and inspire equally the deliberations of that society and the use of its instruments of sanction.

1. **For this reason, too, one understands why the authority of such a society must be real and effective over the member states ** in suchwise, however, that each of them retain an equal right of its own sovereignty.

1. Only thus will the spirit of sane democracy be able to pervade the vast and thorny ground of foreign relations…

FORMATION OF A COMMON MEANS TO MAINTAIN PEACE

…**An essential point in any future international arrangement would be the formation of an organ for the maintenance of peace, of an organ invested by common consent with supreme power to whose office it would also pertain to smother in its germinal state any threat of isolated or collective aggression.

1. No one could hail this development with greater joy than he who has long upheld the principle that the idea of war as an apt and proportionate means of solving international conflicts is now out of date.**

1. No one could wish success to this common effort, to be undertaken with a seriousness of purpose never before known, with greater enthusiasm, than he who has conscientiously striven to make the Christian and religious mentality reject modern war with its monstrous means of conducting hostilities.

 

[Vouthon]

In fact, I can trace this idea a bit earlier to the nineteenth century in a work of Catholic Thomistic philosophy from the 19th century, which received the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur and was published in 1876 with a brief from Pope Pius XI.

www3.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/cp51.htm

**Elementary Course of CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY

Based on the Principles of
the Best Scholastic Authors

Adapted from the French of
Brother Louis of Poissy**

by

The Brothers of the Christian Schools

Nihil Obstat.
D. J. McMAHON, D.D.

Imprimatur.

• MICHAEL AUGUSTINE,
  ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK

NEW YORK, Aug. 11, 1898.

**Brief of Our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX

To our Beloved Son, Brother Louis of Poissy, of the Congregation of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, Beziers.
PIUS IX., POPE.

BELOVED SON, HEALTH AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION…**.

We are glad that the Elementary Course of Christian Philosophy, which you have published, has received the approbation of a Bishop so distinguished as yours; and with him we earnestly wish that it may prove beneficial to many.

In the meantime, as a presage of the divine favor and a pledge of our paternal love, we very affectionately impart to you, Beloved Son, the Apostolic Benediction.

**Given at Rome, at St. Peter’s, March 18, 1876, in the thirtieth year of Our Pontificate.

PIUS** IX., POPE.

…

**Part III. The Common Law of Nations.

1. Nations attain the perfection proper to them only when they constitute a universal society**. – Man tends naturally at all times to enlarge the circle of his social relations; the ultimate term of this tendency is the universal association of people. The collection of rights and duties resulting from this universal association constitutes the common law of nations, which, like individual and social law, has its foundation in nature itself.

…

**Chapter IV. The Society of Nations.

1. The nations are destined by nature to unite under a new and more extended form of society.** – The nations, finding themselves in contact with one another, are obliged to aspire to a common good, which consists in order; it is, therefore, the design of nature that they form a universal society. The same conclusion is drawn from the need which nations experience of associating for their material, intellectual, and moral development.

119. The universal society of nations, far from injuring their independence, is its surest guarantee. – As civil society is the most powerful protection of the domestic order, so the universal society of nations is destined to assure the national independence and upright government of each of the associated peoples.

**120. The authority destined to rule this universal society is naturally polyarchical, but it may also be monarchical. – Nations are in themselves equal, therefore they all naturally share the authority in the person of their representatives who are united in a general assembly. Yet it depends on their will to delegate the whole power to one, as happened in the empire of the middle ages. **

121. The associated nations should apply themselves to the gradual formation of a government endowed in the highest degree with unity and efficacy; and this government should have threefold power, legislative, executive, and judiciary. – The government of this universal society should possess the conditions of all government. The more it is one and efficacious, the more will harmony reign among the nations. If all international controversies and all the abuses of power by those who govern could legitimately be summoned to its tribunal, there would soon be an end of all international or civil war.

 

[Vouthon]

To return to the OP, apparently there were also so-called “Occasional Prayers,” (sets of collects for various intentions, to be said by the priest after end of the propers), recited for the ‘Emperor’ as well.

From Dom Prosper Gueranger’s (1805 - 1875) Liturgical Year (which covers every day of the Catholic Church’s Liturgical cycle):

**COLLECT

O God, the Protector of all Kingdoms and in particular of the Christian Empire, grant to Thy servant our Emperor N. always to work wisely for the triumph of Thy power, that being a prince in virtue of Thy institution he may always continue mighty by virtue of Thy grace. Through Our Lord.

SECRET

Accept, O Lord, the prayers and offerings of Thy Church for the safety of Thy suppliant servant, and work prodigies habitual to Thine arm for the protection of nations faithful to Thee: that, the enemies of peace having been overcome, Christian peace may allow of Thy being served in security. Through Our Lord.

POSTCOMMUNION

O God, Who hast prepared the Roman Empire to serve for the preaching of the Gospel of the Eternal King: present Thy servant our Emperor N. with heavenly weapons, that the peace of the Churches may not be disturbed by the storms of war. Through Our Lord.**

 

[Vouthon]

It’s also interesting to consider how thinkers like Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz (1646 - 1716), the famous German polymath, understood the universal sovereignty of the Empire and Papacy as late as the late 17th and early 18th century. Leibniz pioneered the concept of “legal personality” under international law.

Leibniz wrote in his Caesarinus Furstenerius:

books.google.co.uk/books?id=iSc0CqdykDAC&pg=PA111&dq=medieval+papacy+holy+roman+empire+universal+sovereignty&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmpfbElobRAhUKM1AKHUhGBDIQ6AEIJTAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

"…The position of the Holy Roman Emperor is a little more elevated than one commonly thinks; Caesar is the defender, or rather the chief, or if one prefers the secular arm of the universal Church. All Christendom forms a species of republic, in which Caesar has some authority - from which comes the name, Holy Empire, which should somehow extend as far as the Catholic Church. Caesar is the commander Imperator], that is the born leader of Christians against the infidels: it is mainly for him to destroy schisms, to bring about the meeting of [ecumenical] Councils, to maintain good order, in short to act through the authority of his position so that the Church and the Republic of Christendom suffer no harm…

The salvation of souls and the public good are the objects of the same attentions…The scepters of kings are…subject, like their consciences, to the universal church - not to diminish the consideration which is due them, nor to tie princely hands which must always be free to administer justice and to govern peoples happily; but to constrain, by a greater authority, those turbulent men who, without regard to what is permitted and what is not, are disposed to sacrifice the blood of the innocent to their particular ambition, and often push princes into criminal actions: to constrain them [national governments], by the authority which I believe resides somehow in the universal Church, and in the Holy Empire, and in its two heads, the Emperor and a legitimate Pope, using his power legitimately.

Thus, if it is a question of what is right, one cannot refuse to Caesar some authority in a great part of Europe, and a species of primacy analogous to the ecclesiastical primacy of the Pope…And if the Council [of nations under the Emperor and Pope] were perpetual, or if there existed a General Senate of Christendom established by its authority, that which is done today by treaties and, as is said, by mediations and guarantees, would be done by the interposition of the [universal] Public Authority, emanating from the Heads of Christendom, the Pope and the Emperor…"

Leibniz is such a world renowned genius, admired by many contemporary secular philosophers and scientists.

Its quite incredible to consider this “other side” to him and it provides a fascinating context in which to interpret these imperial prayers, as they would have been understood in the 18th century, the last century in which they were properly speaking viable.

Not only the Church but leading intellectuals at this time actually did appear to believe in the ideal of a universal “Republic” or “Empire” chaired by the Pope and Emperor; a federal union of Christendom that had a higher, executive authority over the nations while also respecting the sovereignties of the respective Princes, kingdoms and Christian republics.

That’s so different to how we view the international order today.

Interestingly, they saw “Holy Roman Empire” and “Republic of Christendom” as interchangeable terms.

Amazing what old liturgies can lead you to discover!

 

[PaulfromIowa]

I think that this is quite correct. The Early Church was very much persecuted by the pagan Roman Empire. However, after Constantine, the Church and the Christianized Roman Empire became partners. In the East, the Roman Empire lasted until the Fall of Constantinople in 1517. For centuries, the Church viewed the ideal system of government as a Christian Monarchy. Bishop John Carroll and the other early US bishops who embraced the US Constitutional Republic were viewed with suspicion in Rome. It was only with the development of the Christian Democratic movement and parties in Europe that the Church and Republicanism became reconciled.