Cardinal Pacelli in Budapest, 1938

He is being welcomed as Papal Legate to the Eucharsitic Congress.

Karl Joseph Kardinal Schulte (1871-1941)

He was bishop of Paderborn from 1910 until 1920 and archbishop of Cologne from 1920 until his death.



During the dark years, Schulte took a decidedly anti-Nazi-position and especially fought against the so-called "immorality trials", which were set up as a tool by the anti-Christian and anti-Catholic government to exploit some 0.2 % suspect-cases of priests that provoked "scandal". The Nazis had imprisoned 915 priests and lay-brothers, although in the whole "Reich" not more than 58 of could be suspected of immorality.

Here is an excerpt from the TIME:

In Munich after services some priests led their congregations out to defy the noisy Hitler Youth. Fist fights ensued, ten more priests were bundled into jail. In Cologne 60,000 Catholics thronged the Cathedral Square, wildly cheered Cologne's anti-Nazi Archbishop, Joseph Cardinal Schulte.

Schulte also took a firm stand against the government's attempts to deny the Church her right to educate her own flock.



Cardinal Schulte died of a heart-attack during a heavy air-raidon Cologne in 1941.

Old newspapers are fun!

Especially when the title includes the words "Catholic" and "Illustrated". Example: "La Hormiga de Oro, Ilustración Católica", an illustrated Spanish weekly, whose covers show us all the things we like about the Church in general and the Spanish Church in particular:


Happy prelates


Elegance


Canons


The baciamano and the cappa


Coronations


(Future) Martyrs


Popes


Snapshots


The Universal Church


Pontifical Masses


All photos found here. Check out this page and other online marketplaces for lots more!

Richard Downey (1881-1953

He served as Archbishop of Liverpool from 1928 until his death.

It was under his reign that construction of the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King began. The original design by Sir Edwin Lutyens envisioned a huge cathedral that would have become the second-largest church in the world and the world's largest dome, with a diameter of 168 feet (51 m) compared to the 137.7 feet (42.0 m) on St. Peter's in Rome. Building work based on Lutyens' design began in 1933. In 1941 the restrictions of World War II and a rising cost from £3 million to £27 million forced construction to stop. In 1956 work recommenced on the crypt, which was finished in 1958. Thereafter, Lutyens' design for the cathedral was considered too expensive and so was abandoned with only the crypt complete. Here you see what could have been:



After the ambitious design by Lutyens fell through, Adrian Gilbert Scott was commissioned in 1953 to work on a smaller cathedral design. He proposed a scaled-down version of Lutyens' building, retaining the massive dome. Scott's plans were criticised and the building did not go ahead. Today's cathedral was designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd. Construction began in October 1962 and less than five years later, on the Feast of Pentecost 14 May 1967, the completed cathedral was consecrated. This is what we have today:

The Provosts of Klosterneuburg

Stift Klosterneuburg is an Augustinian Canonry beautifully situated on a hill in the town of the same name north of Vienna/Austria. The house will soon celebrate the 900th anniversary of its foundation (1114) by Saint Leopold, margrave of Austria from 1095 to 1136. The community is still very active and draws young men from all over the world into its novitiate every year. If you are interested in the house, check out this page of the good and informative website of the Augustinian Canons.

In 1936, the 800-year commemoration of Leopold's death, the church of the Canonry was granted the status of a basilica. Ever since, the provosts were allowed to wear the cappa magna.

Here are some photos of the three prelates that made use of the cappa


Joseph Eduard Kluger



He was provost of Klosterneuburg from 1913 until 1937. He also was the abbot general of the Aufstrian Congregation from 1919 until his death.


Alipius Joseph Linda





Provost of Klosterneuburg from 1937 to 1953. Abbot General from 1946 to 1953. He led the community during the difficult years of the Second World War. He and the community were heavily abused with slander and aggression by the Nazis and eventually were thrown out of their house. Fortunately they were able to return after the war and found the canonry intact despite the fact that it had been occupied by the Russians.


Gebhard Ferdinand Koberger





Provost of Klosterneuburg from 1953 to 1995 (retired after 42 years!). Abbot General from 1954 to 1987. Abbot Primate of the Confederation from 1968 to 1974. I have these nice color photos, because provost Koberger kept on wearing the cappa after the council (as was his right) and turned down everybody who started whining about the ermine, which was forbidden after the council, that is was "just a rabbit".

This one is my favorite: Provost Koberger, fully decked out, surrounded by some of his clerics, standing in front of the beautiful high altar of the basilica, carrying the head of Saint Leopold (relic is kept in the treasury of the monastery) on a cushion.

Quito 1841

By now most readers will be familiar with the splendiferous "Arrastre de las Caudas" from Quito, Ecuador.

Now I found another interesting report dealing with the customs during Holy Week in Quito. The French naturalist Alcide D'Orbigny recorded in his work A Picturesque Voyage Across the Two Americas the amazement felt by the eyewitness account of his countryman, Raigecourt, during his Holy Week visit in 1841, where he wrote about the Good-Friday-Procession: "A thousand saintly souls led the procession. A cortege of musicians masked and draped in purple robes. a multitude of negroes dressed uniformly in royal blue robes. two lines of nuns. a huge hubbub of individuals dressed in every sort of vestment, armed with sticks, sabres, swords, lances and lanterns to hand. These represented the Jews."

"These documents give an idea of the huge size of this procession, in which absolutely the whole of the city of Quito acted or watched. Nobody was left out!" explains Alfonso Ortiz Crespo, an historian of Quito and author of a work on Holy Week during the Spanish Colony. According to Crespo, soon after the establishment of the town in the 16th century, this Christian ceremony of remembrance and reflection became one of the most impressive and well attended throughout the Spanish Empire. Despite this fervour and popularity, the event fell foul of liberal ideology in the mid–19th century when President José María Urbina suppressed it entirely.

The celebration couldn’t be completed rubbed from popular memory, and by the 20th century Holy Week had recovered its place in Quito society. In 1964, the chronicler of the city, Luciano Andrade Marín, wrote "Nothing was more grandiose or more solemn in Quito in the time of my grandparents than the Good Friday procession." His description of the celebration evokes “an entire legion of faithful penitents carrying thick ropes around their necks and even signs asking for mercy, who made their way on their knees, fainting at every turn. These were pursued by horrible devils who tempted the penitents, harsh–looking Jews, saintly souls in white robes, capricious dancers and float–bearers begging for alms”. Andrade Marín assures us that the height of the tops of the cucuruchos’ hats (people wearing traditional conical, pointed–hat robes, like those worn in Spain and famously by the Klu–Klux Klan) touched the balconies of the city where citizens gathered in huge numbers to watch the impressive procession.

Here is a picture of the procession drawn according to the 1841-report (it's a rather large file, but you want to see the details):

Jusztinián Cardinal Serédi O.S.B. (1884 -1945)

Over the years, a whole lot of photos of Cardinal Serédi have piled up on my computer. I will now put them all together in one post for your viewing pleasure and future reference. Don't spend hours on google-images looking for photos of this prelate, when you can find the nicest one all in one place!

First some historical information: Jusztinián György Serédi joined the order of Saint Benedict in 1901, when he entered the monastery of Pannonhalma. He took his solemn vows on July 10, 1905 and was ordained a priest on 14 July 1908.

Pope Pius XI appointed him Archbishop of Esztergom on 30 November 1927. He was consecrated on 8 January 1928 in the Sistine chapel by Pope Pius.

He was created and proclaimed Cardinal-Priest of Ss. Andrea e Gregorio al Monte Celio in the consistory of December 19, 1927. He was a senator of Hungary in the parliament by his own right.

Like pretty much every bishop who was in office during the Second World War, Serédi's role today is 'disputed', although his personal record doesn't read all that bad at all: In 1934 Serédi issued a statement saying no Catholic priest could support the principles of Nazism. In the spring of 1944 he issued a statement condemning the attacks on, discrimination against and deportation of the Jews on racial grounds. Serédi also worked to try to get Catholic Jews exempted from deportation and death, but was only able to get the rule to apply to those who were priests, monks or nuns. In April 1944 Serédi protested the treatment of Jews by the Nazis in Hungary. Serédi's leading the Hungarian church in opposition to the attack on the Jews lead to the arrest of two bishops and several priests and nuns. One of the bishops arrested by the Nazis was József Mindszenty.

As I noted elsewhere, Cardinal Serédi did not die, as the date might suggest, during the war, but shortly afterwards. It is said that his heart broke and his will failed after he saw his diocese and country in ruins.


Here are the photos:

Portraits:










In pontificals:




In procession:







During a visit to Poland, 1933:








This photo of Cardinal Serédi, which I posted on the old "Far Sight" years ago, started a successful career on Wikipedia, after having been snatched from my blog. It is used in articles about Cardinal Serédi as well as in articles dealing with the choir-dress of bishops and cardinals:

The first American Cardinal

John Cardinal McCloskey (1810 - 1885) was the fifth bishop (and second archbishop) of New York.

He was elevated to the cardinalate by Blessed Pope Pius IX in the consistory of March 15, 1875, becoming the first American cardinal.

He dedicated the newly-constructed St. Patrick's Cathedral on May 25, 1879.


In this colored lithograph archbishop McCloskey receives the cardinal's biretta from the hands of archbishop James Roosevelt Bayley of Baltimore.

Another Benedictine Abbot

Thomas d'Aquino Bossart was abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Einsiedeln, Switzerland, from 1905 to 1923.

Right after Bossart's election, the abbot and his successors were granted the privilege of the cappa magna. Here's the page from the "Summary"-book of the different privileges granted to the monastery across the centuries, which shows the 1905 entry: