Friday, November 17, 2006

Pius XII blog





Have a look at http://sttppxiir.blogspot.com/ if you have real player do look at the death and funeral, quite different from the modern rite, the motor hearse is a bit vulgar. The Noble Guard in the war footage is something else.








I am curious about this mitre, it appears not to be gold, was a plain coloured one used by Popes?

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday Fr Ray!

Chris (formally of Elm Grove Community)

latinmass1983 said...

This picture was taken BEFORE he became pope. Here he is either Bishop or Archbishop.

Hilary Jane Margaret White said...

Looks like a black mitre, and black chasuble. Possibly a funeral Mass or All Souls?

Fr Ray Blake said...

Ssssssh Chris, don't tell anyone.

Hilary, mitres are supposed to be white, golden or precious (jewelled, embroidered etc). Miter's matching vestments is new, coming from Anglicanism, I think. I have never heard of or seen a picture of a black one.

latinmass1983 said...

This might just be a simple mitre, not black. Again, since he was not pope at the time of this picture, he could wear simple mitres.

Anonymous said...

Pacelli was either nuncio to Germany or a cardinal when the second photo was taken(there is neither papal fanon nor pallium).

The mitre was probably made of a very dark gold coloured fabric, and definitely not cloth of gold, hence the contrast with the metalic braid at the edges.

Fr Ray Blake said...

AZ, You are right, he is obviously not Pope.
It seems a reasonable explanation of the miter.

Anonymous said...

since others have already leaked it,congratulations on your 21st birthday, perhaps 21X2+?.

latinmass1983 said...

A friend told me that the picture is of Pius XII when he was Cardinal. It was taken during the Mass at the Eucharistic Congress in Budapest. He is waiting a golden miter.

latinmass1983 said...

Ooops!

I meant: he is wearing a golden mitre, not "he is waiting a golden mitre."

Anonymous said...

It is a mitre made of rich, dark gold velvet. They were popular in that era in Hungary, Austria, Bavaria and Bohemia.

Anonymous said...

It COULD be a colored mitre... although all mitres are suposed to be of white linen... and that's been extended to mean "white linen embroidered in gold" aka "auriphrigiate" which in turn has been allowed to be interpreted as a "cloth of gold" one... etc....
anyhow - I have seen a black mitre with a polichrome silk depiction of the crucifixion in Toledo's Cathedral dating from around the 16th century... also in a couple of German Cathedral Treasuries I've seen red velvet mitres...from 15th and 16th centuries also.
So it isn't just an Anglican thing persay... we had them too, though with the whole Tridentine wave of "lets make everything and everyone uniform" a lot of this costumes or practices were left off.
This is not a critisism of the Tridentine rite... just that it was a consequence of it.
They say that "today's fashion is nothing more than the oposite of what was in fashion yesterday" and just as the Tridentine effect came to standarize everything to the Roman way... and Vatican II then opened the door to hippie-technicolor-vestments and such -frankly- inapropiate things... it'd be good to find a balance sometime. I know HH Pope Benedict XVI is striving for that happy balance and justice to faith and tradition - albeit all the silly criticism he's getting from those who don't understand what he is doing and why it is important. Well, God Bless.

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