VATICAN INSIDER EXPLORES THE ACCU – JUNE 29, CELEBRATING THE FEAST OF STS PETER AND PAUL IN ROME

Last evening at 6 pm in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis said Mass to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Prof. Guzmán Carriquiri Lecour and Lídice María Gómez Mango. Guzman, a Uruguyan, has held numerous positions in the Roman Curia, starting in 1971 and including Bureau Chief and later under-secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. It seems the Pope heard the couple had planned a Mass and he decided to personally preside! A lovely way to thank the couple, especially Guzman, for his years of service!

From Canton Ohio: A miracle inquiry for the Cause of Beatification of the Servant of God Rhoda Wise was closed in the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown on June 25, 2019 and will be sent to the Congregation of Saints in Rome. More details will be shared at the special Mass on the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in thanksgiving for the 80th Anniversary of the Healing of The Servant of God Rhoda Wise. The Mass is 7:00 pm at Saint Peter Catholic Church, Canton, celebrated by Bishop George V. Murry, S.J., of Youngstown.

There is a big breaking story on China from the Vatican – will try to post Vatican note ASAP.

VATICAN INSIDER EXPLORES THE ACCU

Join me on this final weekend of June for a new edition of Vatican Insider for Part II of my conversation with Michael Galligan-Stierle, outgoing president and CEO of ACCU – the Washington, DC-based Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. Every June Michael and his wife Pamela lead the ACCU’s annual Rome seminar for university and college presidents. We talk about the history of ACCU the Rome seminar, the difference between college and university, the benefits of membership in ACCU for a college or university, the advantages of going to a Catholic college or university, and much more.

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JUNE 29, CELEBRATING THE FEAST OF STS PETER AND PAUL IN ROME

Thirty-one metropolitan archbishops will receive the pallium tomorrow morning, June 29 in St. Peter’s basilica during Mass presided over by the Holy Father. The Pope will bless the palliums during Mass and hand each archbishop the symbol of his authority in his archdiocese and of his ties to the Successor of Peter, the Pope. The nuncio of each archbishop’s country will actually place the pallium on his shoulders in a ceremony in his home cathedral.

June 29 is the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles and patron saints of Rome. There are a number of non-liturgical events that mark the day of you happen to be in the Eternal City. It is a big holiday for the Vatican and the City of Rome.

The historical Floral Painting known as Infiorata Storica, organized by the Pro Loco organization of Rome, will take place tomorrow between Via della Conciliazione and Piazza Pio XII, just yards from St. Peter’s Square.

According to historical sources, the custom of creating floral paintings was born in Rome in the year 1625, when on the occasion of the patronal feast of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29, the head of the Vatican Floristry, Benedetto Drei had carpets made of “leafy flowers and vines to emulate the works of the mosaic” in front of the Basilica of St. Peter. At the death of Benedetto Drei, it was Gian Lorenzo Bernini who succeeded him, and it is through his influence that the tradition spread to the localities of Castelli Romani, rooting itself strongly in Lazio and beyond.

At 9:30 pm on June 29, go to the terraces of the Pincio (Piazza del Popolo) for the 13th edition of the historical re-enactment of the “Girandola di Roma,” (the Roman pinwheel), a fireworks display conceived by Michelangelo and reworked by Bernini.

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A SAINT, BABY LAMBS, AND PALLIUMS

In St. Peter’s Square today, June 29, solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles, Pope Francis presided at Mass with the new cardinals he created yesterday and with other members of the College of Cardinals. The College now has 226 members, 125 of whom are cardinal electors under the age of 80 and eligible to vote in a conclave.

During Mass the Pope blessed the palliums worn by metropolitan archbishops that for years were placed on the shoulders of the archbishops by the Pope on this very feast day. This year the palliums were handed in a box to the new metropolitan archbishops.

In 2015 Francis changed the traditional ceremony in which the prelates receive the pallium, deciding that the public ceremony of investiture of the pallium on metropolitan archbishops would henceforth take place in their home dioceses and not in the Vatican as has been the case under recent pontiffs.

The pallium is a white woolen circular band embroidered with six black crosses which is worn over the shoulders and has two hanging pieces, one in front and another in back. Worn by the Pope and by metropolitan archbishops, it symbolizes their authority as archbishop and expresses the special bond between the bishops and the Roman Pontiff.
In a 1978 document, “Inter Eximina Episcopalis,” Pope Paul VI restricted its use to the Pope and metropolitan archbishops. Six years later, Pope John Paul decreed that it would be conferred on the metropolitans by the Pope on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.

Every year in the Vatican, on January 21, in keeping with the tradition for the liturgical memory of St. Agnes, two lambs, blessed earlier in the morning in the Roman basilica named for this saint, are presented to the Pope. The lambs are raised by the Trappist Fathers of the Abbey of the Three Fountains. When their wool is shorn, the Sisters of St. Cecelia weave it into the palliums (pallia is another plural form) that, on the June 29th feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles, are given to new metropolitan archbishops as signs of their office.

Usually in attendance at the January 21 ceremony in the Apostolic Palace are 21 people, including two Trappist fathers, several nuns, two canons of the Chapter of St. John, the dean of the Roman Rota, and two officials from the Office of the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, and a number of other invited guests.

The baby lambs, under one year of age, are normally tucked into wicker baskets, and both lambs and baskets are adorned with red and white ribbons and flowers, white to symbolize purity and red to signify the blood of a martyr. In 2004 St. John Paul II blessed the lambs during a general audience in the Paul VI Hall as both the audience and St. Agnes’ feast day occurred on a Wednesday.

Agnes died about 305 and is buried in the basilica named for her on Rome’s Via Nomentana. Historical accounts vary about the birth, life and manner of death of Agnes but generally it is recounted that, in order to preserve her virginity, she was martyred at a very young age, probably 12. She is usually depicted with a lamb because the Latin word so similar to her name, agnus, means “lamb.” The name Agnes is actually derived from the feminine Greek adjective hagné meaning “chaste, pure.”

In 2011, L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican paper, carried an interview with Sr. Hanna Pomniaowska, one of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth who prepares the lambs every year for their Vatican visit. This order of nuns has been preparing the baby lambs for over 130 years and it was their founder, Blessed Frances Siedliska, who started this custom in 1884. Up to that date another order of nuns had prepared the lambs but it became difficult when the nuns began to age. At that time the Sisters of the Holy Family took over the duties.

Two lambs are brought to the sisters on January 20 by the Trappist Fathers of Tre Fontane (Three Fountains). The nuns then bring the lambs to the top floor of their residence where there is a terrace with a laundry room where the lambs are washed with delicate soap usually used for children until their wool is white as the driven snow and they are dried with a hair dryer that, in recent years, has replaced the towels they once used.

The nuns are careful to completely dry the lambs so that, at their tender age, they do not fall sick. The room is well heated. After the lambs are dried they are placed in a tub that is covered with straw and closed with canvas so they don’t catch cold. A meal of straw is fed to the lambs who then spend the night in the laundry.

The morning of January 21, the nuns place two small capes on the lambs, one is red to indicate St. Agnes’ martyrdom and the other is white to indicate her virginity. There are also three letters on each mantle: S.A.V. (St. Agnes Virgin) and S.A.M. (St. Agnes Martyr). The sisters weave crowns of interlocking red and white flowers, place them on the baby lambs’ heads, and then put the lambs in a decorated basket. The lambs are tied so they don’t escape. In fact, one of them did escape a few years back, jumping up and running from the altar at St. Agnes basilica.

In the morning the lambs are brought to St. Agnes Basilica where they are placed on the altar and blessed. Following this ceremony, two papal sediari or chair bearers bring the lambs in a van to the Vatican where they are presented to the Holy Father. It is usually the sisters who are celebrating a jubilee of religious vows who are present in the papal residence.