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There’s a new doc’ in town
My fellow Russell Berrie Fellow Matthew John Paul Tan was celebrated for two significant milestones at Rome’s most famous Austrian restaurant today. My Singaporean-Aussie classmate was officially awarded his Ph.D. in theology from the Australian Catholic University on Friday, just two days before his 30th birthday today.
Though he put in several years of effort toward the first achievement, credit is largely due elsewhere for the second. Nevertheless we threw him a party for both.
Actually, he invited us. So it is not so much that we threw a party for him as that we showed up for his party. But we brought gifts!
Well, a gift, anyway. Moving on…
Cantina Tirolese is famous, at least among Vatican-watching theology nerds, as the favorite haunt of the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger, whose presence was frequent enough that he had a perpetually reserved booth. I do not know if he has been back since his election five years ago, though. Maybe they deliver?
Congrats again to Matthew!
Dr. Matthew John Paul Tan
Paschal Triduum 2010
The first time I participated in the Easter Triduum was also my altar serving debut. I was in third grade, nine years old. My training was held right after school by Sr. Mary Thorne, if I recollect correctly, and a few hours later I was serving my first mass, on Holy Thursday. That was twenty-three years ago and I have never intentionally missed any part of the Triduum.
Holy Father washing feet of 12 presbyters at Holy Thursday Mass
In fact, I can only remember missing the whole thing once, because I was sick – but I had already done all the planning and training for the liturgies, and had very reliable volunteer lay liturgical ministers to rely upon in absentia. One other year, I was in the ER during the Easter vigil with a friend. Other than these two, I have worshipped during the high holy days, and usually as a server, lector, or liturgist and master of ceremonies. Even in my last interim parish ministry, where I was not the primary liturgist, I still had a contingent of catechumens to bring through the rites.
That said, it is kind of nice (but also a bit weird) to be absolutely and completely free of responsibility throughout the Triduum, and to be in Rome. There are three places where every Catholic should spend Holy Week at least once, in my opinion: Jerusalem, Rome, and Notre Dame. Though not necessarily in that order.
Latin and Greek Deacons in Gospel Procession, Holy Thursday, Archbasilica San Giovanni
Throughout my four years at Notre Dame, I was an altar server in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and sometime assistant MC there and sacristan/liturgy coordinator at the Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Keough Hall. Triduum was always a great deal of work, but always masterfully done, accompanied by beautiful music, and in the words of one visiting curial cardinal (who so enjoyed Holy Week at ND he came back twice while I was there), “This is better than Saint Peter’s!”.
I am inclined to agree, but with qualification. To be clear, I am disappointed in nothing of the Triduum here in Rome, except for the mob (the Romans’ answer to the queue, or line).
Way of the Cross - my view was not this blurry
This is, after all, the first church (not in chronology, but in order). The Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday was celebrated at the Pope’s Cathedral, the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, Mother-Church of Rome. The Service of Our Lord’s Passion on Good Friday and the Great Vigil of Easter were celebrated at the Vatican Basilica of Saint Peter. All were presided by the Bishop of Rome, Benedict XVI, and he was homilist at the first and last (Raniero Cantalamesa, OFM Cap., the preacher of the papal household, had the homily on Good Friday, as you may have heard.) I prayed the Way of the Cross from the edge of our property, a bluff overlooking the Coliseum with clear line-of-sight of the Holy Father about 300 meters away.
Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap., Papal Preacher on Good Friday
The prayer guides are published pocket-sized booklets, illustrated with prints of 15th and 16th century frescoes from Italian churches. The liturgy was celebrated in Latin, the mass parts chanted in Gregorian style, and deacons blessed with angelic voices chanted the gospel – on Thursday it was proclaimed twice, once each in both Latin and Greek! (Presumably in honor of the fact that this year, Passover and Easter on both the Julian and Gregorian calendars all coincide). The prayers of the faithful throughout the three-day liturgy were offered in French, Spanish, English, Polish, German, Portuguese, Russian, Tagalog, Swahili and Arabic. Readings were in Italian, Greek, Latin, French, English, German, and Spanish.
Deacons Proclaiming the Passion
The exultet in Latin is amazing. The Passion on Good Friday in slowly chanted Latin is impressive, but also a little hard on the back. (OK, yes, the very act of complaining about listening to the passion, when it is after all, the passion, is a sin I will publicly confess here and now: Mea culpa, ego sum mereum humanum.)
I found this interesting, though: Over the last few years in liturgical circles we have been encouraged to discourage the reading of the Passion in parts, as it is often printed in the missalletes and music books, and instead just have three deacons or readers proclaim the reading in turn. At the papal liturgy at San Pietro, with the ‘new’ Marini in charge, they had each deacon proclaim different parts (Narrator, Jesus, Peter/others) and the choir as the crowd/assembly.
Pope Benedict during the Great Vigil's Service of Light
This touches on one of the great reasons to be in Rome: The liturgical diversity. I do not just mean the fact that there are representatives of all the major rites of the Church here in the city (Alexandrian, Antiochene, Armenian, Byzantine, Chaldean, and Latin), but also that within the Latin rites, within the Roman rite specifically, you have diversity. Just between the Roman Cathedral (San Giovanni) and the Vatican Basilica (San Pietro), with the same pope presiding and the same papal MC, you find different ways of celebrating and different customs.
One small example, during the Eucharistic prayer: At San Giovanni, we do not kneel, and there is no bell during the epiclesis and the two elevations, but there is incense. At San Pietro, we kneel from the epiclesis to the mystery of faith, and there is a bell for the epiclesis and two elevations, but no incense.
Easter Vigil 2010 San Pietro
Another interesting note, if a little random. While the Mass of the Lord’s Supper traditionally commemorates the institution of the Eucharist in the form of the Last Supper, it has traditionally been called the institution of the priesthood, through the act of the washing of feet. Historically, of course, and theologically, this is not entirely accurate so back home we had long since opted away from this simplistic phrasing lest it require a great deal of explanation. However, in the pre-liturgy announcements at San Giovanni, there it was “The Institution of the Eucharist and of the ministerial priesthood”.
Twelve presbyters were the mandatum at the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper, whose feet the Holy Father washed, though none of this was visible to me. The diplomatic corps were invited to communion with the Holy Father as minister, which they recieveed kneeling and on the tongue, or, they recieved a blessing instead of communion, if appropriate; but everyone else recieved communion along the aisles (standing, and in tongue or hand as the communicant prefered).
After returning to the Lay Centre for dinner, a group of us spent the evening in an adoration pilgrimage of seven churches during the traditional period until midnight: Basilica San Giovanni e Paolo, Basilica Santa Maria in Domnica, the Baptistry of San Giovanni, Archbasilica San Giovanni, Basilica Sant’Antonio di Padova, Basilica Santi Quattri Coronatti, and the Chapel of the Holy Trinity.
San Tommaso in Formis, with Dr. Orsuto and Dr. Hagstrom
St. Peter’s has a capacity of over 60,000 roughly the same as Notre Dame Stadium before the 1997 expansion. That plus room for another 400,000 in the piazza makes for a somewhat larger assembly than the 2500 or so who can fill the Basilica of Sacred Heart at Notre Dame. For an experience of the Church universal in the heart of the Church, you cannot beat Rome. But for that Church universal manifest in a local church, I do not think even Rome can beat Notre Dame. To a degree, its like apples and oranges. The assembly is different, and the considerations are different. One aims for a liturgy that represents the whole church, which is probably represented pretty well by those present. The other aims for a liturgy of the local church being wholly church in its place. For Latin and the biggest of big liturgy, it is Rome. For best liturgy captured in a particular church, music that is beautiful, reverent and accessible, it is Notre Dame. I am happy to have had my four years at ND, and hope to get a few more here in Rome!
Church of San Tommaso in Formis
For Easter Sunday, between the full papal Triduum experience and the rain, I decided to go to the little church served by the Trinitarian Fathers, Chiesa San Tomasso in Formis (St. Thomas in Chains), literally just outside our front gate and around the corner. About 30 people filled the church, including two priests and two other Lay Centre folk, director Donna Orsuto and visiting scholar Dr. Aurelie Hagstrom, chair of the theology department at Providence College in Rhode Island who is here for a month of Marian research. Such a different experience after the big liturgies to be in a small community! The only space for the after-mass social was the tiny sacristy behind the altar, as long as we entered from one side and exited the other!
After a quick cappuccino and cornetto to celebrate the end of Lenten fasting, we watched the Urbi et Orbi on TV and prepared for a mid-afternoon Easter feast. Only a couple guests joined us, making us about fifteen in all – a perfect way to spend a drizzly Easter afternoon.
Maronite Mass with Fr. John Paul Kimes
Father John Paul Kimes is a Maronite presbyter serving in the Supreme Tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the section which deals with grave delicts, those sins which involve the desecration of the sacraments and, since 2001, the sexual abuse of minors by clergy.
The Maronite Church is one of the 23 “self-governing” churches that make up the Catholic Church, and is the only patriarchal church with no Orthodox counterpart. The short version of the history is that while communion between the church of Rome and the church of Lebanon was never broken, communication was lost for some centuries at a time. However, at any opportunity where communion could be expressed, it was. So, it is common to say that the Maronite church was always a part of the Catholic communion. Born of the Syrian tradition surrounding Antioch and Edessa, this church settled in Lebanon and took its name from a hermit-priest of the late fourth century, St. Maron.
Given the connection to these communities, the liturgical rites are West Syrian, or Antiochene, and the liturgical language is a variation of Aramaic, and also includes Arabic. While most of our celebration was in English, some key prayers and responses were said in Arabic, and only our Egyptian Muslim and our Italian scripture scholar could keep up without the transliteration!
It’s a beautiful liturgy, even in the simple setting of our chapel. Perhaps especially so. After my experience with the Syro-Malabar Divine Liturgy recently, I was stuck by how much more of a role the deacon has in the Maronite rite. Also that neither the Alleluia nor the Gloria are omitted in the Maronite liturgy during Lent. (I found a Maronite liturgy on YouTube you could check out)
After dinner Fr. Kimes engaged questions and shared something of his work in the CDF. One of the questions posed was around the role of lay people in curial offices. There are few offices which are actually required, by law, to be held by a cleric, and the CDF tribunal is one of them. In most dicasteries it is simply a culture that has not been challenged. When he was prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Ratzinger apparently filled as many positions as he could with qualified non-ordained people. Even when, after becoming pope, the Congregation needed the very particular expertise of a lay person in a position reserved in canon law to a cleric, Pope Benedict granted it without question.
So why hasn’t this openness translated into changes across the curia now that he’s pope? He leaves his deputies to do the hiring themselves; rather than micromanage he prefers to lead by example. I’m not sure it’s a clear example, however, to most that are unaware of this. There remains, too, what might be described as a benign clericalism (my term, not his), a belief that the limitations to certain offices to clergy is broader than it actually is. In some cases this is more explicit and less benign. But even in the case of the Supreme Tribunal of the CDF, which is clearly clerical by law, Fr. Kimes expressed the opinion that this was a wisdom – some of what is dealt with is so heinous, the thought is that the judges need all the sacramental graces and spiritual strength that they can have, hence the preference in law for someone ordained.
St. Patrick’s in Roma
I never knew there would be so many Irish pubs in Rome. The last time I was in Europe, I discovered that almost every city on the continent of any decent size includes three requisite cuisine options beyond the local fare: an Irish pub, a Chinese restaurant, and a McDonald’s. But I read recently that there were nearly 100 Irish pubs in the greater Rome area, and I even encounter a group of American undergrads making their best effort to visit all of them today.
Thankfully, there’s one just across the park from the front gates, complete with Guinness on tap. Less thankfully, everyone in the Celio neighborhood decided it would be a good idea to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day there. So a contingent of us ventured over after our community night for a pint. One pint, only, mind you. Nevertheless, that was enough to induce an impromptu lesson in Irish dancing for some of my companions…
But, back to our community evening: these are, I may have said, one of the greatest aspects of formation in Rome, the opportunity to meet with curial officials and other church leaders on a weekly basis, celebrating the liturgy with them and hearing a little of their thoughts, their stories, and their insights.
Msgr. Millea, Pope Benedict, Msgr. Marini
Tonight we were pleased to welcome Monsignor William Millea, an American who works in the Secretariat of State, General Affairs Section. This is the section that might parallel white house staff, in the sense that they handle appointments to curial offices, translations and publication of official texts and speeches, etc. An additional duty Father Millea has had is serving as one of the masters of ceremonies for the pope, and can often be seen with the papal master of liturgical celebrations, Monsignor Marini, alongside the Holy Father. This was the case throughout the pope’s pastoral visit to the Unites States a couple years ago. (At which point, as the token American in the Vatican retinue, it was to Millea that Pope Benedict turned after the big Eucharist at Yankee Stadium: “That’s what the liturgy is supposed to be!”)
Like so many we have talked to, he came to Rome for a year, and then came back for more and never left. His love of Latin and things classical certainly helped land him in a position to do much of the translating and interactions with things American and Anglophone for the Secretariat.
The Ides of March
Julius Caesar's Pyre & Temple
I remember being told by some middle school science teacher that each of us probably had two molecules of Caesar’s last breath in our biological makeup. Naturally, given my birth on the anniversary of his assassination, I have always had an interest – I do not think I would go so far as to say a connection – with the Roman Dictator.
I also cannot tell you how many times in my life I have heard the phrase uttered, “Beware the Ides of March” instead of the usual “Happy Birthday!”
With March being full of intensive courses, I was not able to get the full effect of Rome’s celebration honoring its first leader to be officially deified. The site of his funeral pyre, in the heart of the ancient Foro Romano, is modest by comparison to some of the temples around it, but is still adorned with fresh flowers almost daily by Roman devotees. Near the statue of Julius on the Via Forii Imperialli we witnessed a troop of costumed youth re-enacting the story of Caesar and his assassination in 44 B.C.
Julius Caesar statue on Fori Imperiali
While the Roman Senate house is still visible on the Roman forum, it was not in this building where as many as 60 senators participated in his assassination. Instead, meetings were taking place across town, near the Area Sacra at Largo Argentina, in the Theatre of Pompey. There is a restaurant, I’m told, where you can access the basement and eat in part of what was the building in which Caesar was killed. I did not get around to making reservations this year, but maybe next!
Instead, we had a typically great meal at the Lay Centre, and thanks to the intervention of my favorite Dutch theologian-diplomat, Feda baked a delicious flourless chocolate cake popular in Italy known as Torta della Nonna (Grandmother’s Cake).
Lay Centre Featured on Rome Reports
Rome Reports, an English-language news agency that broadcasts to several countries, did a feature about the Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas that aired last week:
Angelicum Leads the Way in Rome for Eucharistic Adoration
Rome Reports is an English-language news program based in Rome, and broadcasting to several countries. They recently did a feature of the Angelicum, apparently the only Pontifical Univeristy in Rome with daily Eucharistic Adoration, including interviews with familiar faces: Benedict Croell, OP; Matthew John Paul Tan, PhD (another Russell Berrie Fellow); and Jill Alexy, M.Div. (fellow Notre Dame alumn).
You can watch the clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Wh3YqLOoU
Mar Bawai Soro
One of my intensive courses this semester is “The History of Aramaic Christianity”, taught by Mar Bawai Soro, a bishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church whose name is probably familiar to anyone who has been involved in ecumenism the last few years. He was also our guest for dinner at the Lay Centre this evening. (And though he did not share this, he was the person who, during the Jubilee Year 2000, recieved from Pope John Paul II the cross carried at the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum. The pope carried it to the first two stations, handed off to Bishop Bawai for the second two, who then handed it off again.)
History of Aramaic Christianity, Angelicum, 2010
In most church history classes I have taken or taught, the focus is usually on the history of the Church within the Roman empire, and subsequently the nations were in direct succession from that Empire. Sometimes it gets even more eclipsed if the focus is purely on the Latin Church, the churches directly associated with the ritual and patriarchal patrimony of the church of Rome itself (ie, the Roman Catholic Church). It is sometimes news enough for people to realize there were four other apostolic sees within the Roman empire besides Rome! But we have often forgotten entirely the church in Asia, beyond the borders of the ancient Roman Empire.
The focus of our studies for this course have been on that Church of the East – not the Eastern or Oriental Orthodox Churches, but further east, in Mesopotamia and what was part of the Persian Empire at the time of Constantine. This church never enjoyed the status of being an official religion of the empire, as did the church in the empire of Rome and Constantinople. In fact, persecution only increased after Christianity became associated with the enemy to the west. To this day, being Christian in this area makes you suspect of collaboration with the “West” – whether that is Emperor Constantine or President Bush, and whether the dominant religion is Persian Zoroastrianism or Shi’a Islam.
This was the church of refuge for the Nestorians and the theological School of Antioch, driven across the border in the aftermath of the Council of Ephesus in 431, and a place where the theological battle between Monophysites and Nestorians was waged for centuries. The first stopping point for the missionary activity of the Apostle Thomas, the Mesopotamian church was the mother church of the earliest Christians in India, still known as Mar Thoma (St. Thomas) Christians. Missionaries of this church had reached Mongolia and China by the sixth century, and some scholars have suggested communities as far as Japan.
The current heirs to this tradition include:
- The Assyrian Church of the East, with about 250,000 members, traditionally centered in Iraq
- The Chaldean Catholic Church, with about 750,000 members, centered in Iraq
- The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, with about 4 million members centered in the state of Kerala, India
Mar Bawai Soro
Much of the Church of the East’s history has been marked by political and ecclesial isolation – first by being the Christians outside the Roman empire, then ecclesially, and throughout by being more or less constantly a persecuted minority in Zoroastrian Persia, or Muslim Arab and Mongol rule. Several times in the last six centuries dioceses and other groups of the faithful would resume full communion with Rome. The first, in 1445 was the archbishop of Cyprus and his diocese, who after a couple generations were unfortunately Latinized and assimilated into the Latin (Roman) Catholic Church. A couple others only lasted for a century or so, eventually leaving communion again. Finally, the Patriarch (one of two rivals, anyway) and his cohort came in to full communion in 1830, giving us the current Chaldean Catholic Church. The rival patriarchal line and those in communion with it remain today as the Assyrian Church of the East, though they were the line which had been in Catholic communion for a century or so during the 16th and 17th centuries.
For 20 years, Bishop Bawai served this church as a bishop and as their top theologian and ecumenical officer (a sort of Ratzinger-Kasper combo, if you will), and participated in the Assyrian-Catholic dialogue from its inception, through the Common Christological Declaration of 1994 and the preparation of the Common Sacramental Declaration that was to follow.
For those who wonder about the products of ecumenism, it only took 8 years of dialogue to resolve the Christological issue that split the church 1500 years ago, and confess together that :
Our Lord Jesus Christ is true God and true man, perfect in his divinity and perfect in his humanity, consubstantial with the Father and consubstantial with us in all things but sin. His divinity and his humanity are united in one person, without confusion or change, without division or separation. In him has been preserved the difference of the natures of divinity and humanity, with all their properties, faculties and operations. But far from constituting “one and another”, the divinity and humanity are united in the person of the same and unique Son of God and Lord Jesus Christ, who is the object of a single adoration.
This is why there is always hope!
Of course, that hope is always needed. The reality of the impending full communion with the Catholic Church provoked some nervousness. Understandably, I suppose: Comparatively, we are beyond huge (4400 Catholics for every one Assyrian Christian), and the prospect of the Patriarch becoming a mere cardinal, as some bloggers have put it, was uninviting. Their decision was to suspend the dialogue, and to suspend the bishop.
After finding no appeal, Mar Bawai and about 5000 faithful, including 30 deacons and a half dozen priests, came into full communion with the Chaldean Catholic Church in 2008.
Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, and il Colosseo
Via Sacra in Roman Forum
There is a bit of social wisdom that notes that we tend to forget to be tourists in our own backyard. When you visit somewhere, you make sure to see all the ‘sights’ – the places that make the place what it is, whether natural beauty, historic memorials, art or architecture or some other human achievement. But when you live there you can just get used to the routine and forget to explore.
This is how I spent the first five months in Rome, with the Roman Forum visible from my window, but had not made it into the ruins. Even with Nancy’s visit, some of the tourist activities got dropped from the agenda due to rain or just too many to do. So, finally I had the time and the timing to spend part of this beautiful weekend exploring the Palatine Hill, Colosseo and the Foro Romano.
Frescoes from the house of Caesar Octavius Augustus
On the Palatine hill, which is visible from our terrace, you can see iron-age huts, honored even in Imperial times as the house of Remus and Romulus, founder of Rome. The house of Augustus Caesar and his wife, Livia – strikingly humble in comparison to the other palaces (especially Nero’s!) The entire complex, the Palatine and the Forum, are connected and in some ways are like a giant park – just that the benches you picnic on are likely fallen columns two millennia old.
The forum is in fact the old city centre. IN the middle of it is the original forum, a small piazza surrounded by temples and government buildings, and the rest now included is a network of roads, buildings, and monuments. The Via Sacra runs through the middle from the Colosseo to the Capitoline hill, passing through the arch of Titus commemorating the victorious conquest of the Jewish Rebellion in 70 AD on one end, and the arch of Septimus Severus on the other, commemorating his victories a century and a half later in Mesopotamia.
Arch of Titus, depicting the looting of the Temple of Jerusalem
After a week in Jerusalem and seeing the Temple Mount, with the juxtaposition of the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock, to come back to Rome and see the Titus arch commemorating the looting of the Temple gives some interesting perspective of that episode in history which influences the stability of peace in the middle east even today!
Emperor-cult temples line the road, including a spot close to my heart, the temple dedicating the site of Julius Caesar’s funeral pyre – the first temple built for an Emperor promoted to deity in the Roman pantheon. What is left of it is neither large, nor particularly attractive, but given that I was born on the anniversary of his assassination, I have to admit I have always felt some kind of connection. Perhaps that is why I liked playing Risk so much…
Julius Caesar's "Grave" - Temple on the site of his funeral pyre
The house of the vestal virgins and the Temple of Vesta is nearby. Charged with keeping the City’s eternal flame going inside the Temple, the Virgins were consecrated to service and honored among Romes citizens – they even had box seats at the Coliseum rivaling the Emperors! The six Vestal Virgins were chosen from noble families at a young age, and commissioned to serve for 30 years. At the age of 40 they could retire with a respectable dowry, marry, raise a family, etc. On the other hand, the punishment for violating the vow of chastity during the 30 years was a pretty chilling death – sealed alive in a crypt with a single loaf of bread and a lamp.
The massive basilica of Constantine sits on the edge of the forum, visible from the Via dei Fori Imperiali, as is the ancient Roman curia house and senate building.
Flavian Amphitheatre (Colisseum)
On the closer end of the forum is the Flavian Amphitheatre (the Colosseo), our next-door neighbor. It could seat almost as many fans as Notre Dame Stadium, complete with retractable awning. It was built on the site of a private lake built by Nero for his sprawling palace complex, as one of the efforts for the Emperor to regain the popular support lost by Nero’s cruel insanities. Admission was free, and included food and wine for spectators.
Apparently, the name Colosseo was a medieval one. Nero had had a 100’ statue of himself built at the entrance to his estate. When Flavius and company demolished his residence and built the amphitheatre, the statue remained. Centuries latter, the colossal statue influence the name of the even more impressive building next to it…
Arch of Constantine, taken from upper level of Colisseum
[Update 3.7.10 – I did not get a picture, but for the last week there have been protesters literally camping out in external alcoves on the second story of the Colosseo, about 30 feet above ground, in tents with banners and bullhorns, protesting immigration and housing issues.]
On the plaza between the coliseum and the Via Sacra is another triumphal arch, built by Constantine honoring the triumph of Christianity in the Empire – but using images and statues borrowed from other memorials and palaces around Rome.
The Ecumenism Blog 