Easter-Hiatus!

See you again in three weeks!

God Bless!

Weird cappa alert!

What's that? I know that there are versinos of the cappa magna that have two slits so that the arms can pass through the fabric, but I have never seen a cappa worn quite the way Wilhelmus Petrus Adrianus Maria Mutsaerts, bishop of 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands is wearing his in these photos.

Cardinal Rampolla

Mariano Cardinal Rampolla del Tindaro (1843-1913) was titular archbishop of Eraclea (consecrated by Cardinal Howard in 1882) and nuncio to Spain from 1882 to 1887, before he received the red hat in 1887 with the title of S. Cecilia in Trastevere. He was Cardinal Secretary of State from 1887 to 1903, President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission from 1902 to 1908 and Archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives from 1912 until his death.


This is an official portrait on which he looks like a person with which you'd rather not have any grave misunderstanding.


This portrait photo is notable for its solemn mood and what could possibly be the shiniest silk-fascia ever to be photographed.


Cardinal Rampolla is buried in S. Cecilia in Trastevere. His tomb is absolutely stunning, as you can see.

Franz Cardinal Bettinger

[Thx to sender-inner Robbert]

Three more photos...

... of the customs surrounding the death of a prelate:


Cardinal Piffl, archbishop of Vienna, lying in state


The canons of Klosterneuburg, Lower Austria, burying one of their prelates


Archbishop Hughes of New York lying in state

Ordinations to the Diaconate in Gricigliano

Already last Saturday (acc. to usus antiquior the Feast of St. Benedict, one of the Patrons of the Institute of Christ the King), Franc Cardinal Rodé, Prefect of the Congregation for the Religious, ordained six deacons in Gricigliano. Teasers here (full gallery there):

John XIII...

... surrounded by the splendor that should soon become a thing of the past for all, a beauty sorely missed for many and a scandalous offense first for the ideologists and then for their disciples.

First Reactions

A couple of day ago I asked readers to send in photos of cardinals lying in state, because Eman was curious to see some. Fr. Selvester was the fastest and found some interesting pictures on the internet:

Cardinal Heenan


Cardinal Griffin


Cardinal Veuillot


Cardinal Spellman


Cardinal Stritch


More to come...

[Thanks to Fr. Selvester for the contribution!]

Kickin' it

Augustinus Josephus Callier, bishop of Haarlem, Netherlands from 1903 to 1928, is taking it easy with a couple of dignitaries and a decent smoke.

Lovely

The pilgrimage chapel "Maria zum Berge Karmel" in Meersburg-Baitenhausen, Germany is a little Rococo jewel. It was finished in the second half of the 18th century under the prince-bishop of Konstanz, Franz Conrad Cardinal von Rodt. The ceiling of the crossing between nave and transept has a fascinating fresco, showing the adoration veneration of Mary by bishop and people. The cardinal is kneeling, surrounded by his clergy, and from his mouth come the words "Erhöre das Gebett deines Volcks" ("Hear the prayer of your people"). Mind you, this is 18th century German, so if you are studying the language right now, don't take this as an example!

Here are photos of the scene:

Close up

Two steps back

The whole scene

When prelates die...

Reader Eman asked, if I had any photos of bishops or cardinals lying in state. I must admit that I don't have any in my collection right now but I am diligently combing through the internet to find some.

This would be a good opportunity to ask readers who should happen to have said photos to produce a scan and fork'em over, so I can post them (for Eman and everybody else who'd like to see them (me included)).

What I did find was a photo from the funeral of a cardinal in Belgium. It was taken in Malines and while the caption didn't give any name it said "before 1909", so I figure the prelate in question is Pierre-Lambert Cardinal Goosens who was archbishop of Mecheln from 1884 to 1906 and was creted a cardinal in 1889.

The Patriarchs of Lisbon...

... had a bucket full of privileges. I often read about them but never saw any photos where you could actually see them. I finally found some pictures. Enjoy!


The first five photos show António Cardinal Mendes Belo, Patriarch of Lisbon from 1907 to 1929. Here you can see that the Patriarchs did not only have a very nice canopy (which of course is not a special privilege) but also flabella and a falda:








On the next two photos you can see Manuel Cardinal Gonçalves Cerejeira, successor of Cardinal Belo, Patriarch of Lisbon from 1929 to 1971. You can see the flabella and the fanon again and also the patriarchal miter which was designed to look like a tiara. The Patriarch of Lisbon had the privilege to wear the tiara but - maybe out of respect for the Pope - apparently never actually wore one but only miters that - at least from far away - looked a bit like tiaras:






On the last three photos (Cardinal Belo again) you don't see any privilege, but one just doesn't pass up pictures of prelates and their carriages:

French canons

There has been a real lot of photos showing Spanish canons on this blog. To balance that a bit, here are some canons from France with their quite distinctive mozzettas:


Clément-Emile Cardinal Roques, Archbishop of Rennes from 1940 until 1964, with one of the Rennes Cathedral canons


Bishop Lobbedey of Arras with canons


Canon Jussiaume of Nantes


Bishop Villeprellet of Nantes with the canons Guiho and Crepel


Canon Théophile Guénard


And a little cappa-canon, too: Leon Maurin of Aix-en-Provence


The caption of this photo just said "St. Vaast, Bethune", which is in France. But I wasn't able to find out to which diocese it belongs, so I am not sure about the picture.

Found in the LIFE-collection

These two photos show Cardinal Wyszyński with a canon who wears a somewhat distinctive cappa. It looks like the train is held together by red bows towards the end and then carried across the arm in some kind of loop. The color reminds me of the cappa of the canons from Krakow but their train doesn't have those strange red bows (or does it and I just failed to recognize it?), so I am kind of puzzled here.