BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Tuesday, February 22, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

FEAST OF PETER'S CHAIR
[This feast commemorates Christ’s choosing Peter to sit in his place as the servant-authority of the whole Church. Already in the second half of the 8th century, an ancient wooden Chair inlaid with ivory was venerated and traditionally held to be the Episcopal chair on which St. Peter sat as he instructed the faithful of Rome. In fact, it is a throne in which fragments of acacia wood are visible, which could be part of the chair of St. Peter, encased in oak and reinforced with iron bands. Several rings facilitated its transportation during processions. Pope Alexander VII commissioned Bernini to build a sumptuous monument which would give prominence to this ancient wooden chair. Bernini built a throne in gilded bronze, richly ornamented with bas-reliefs in which the chair was enclosed: two pieces of furniture, one within the other. It was installed in 1666 on the altar just below the alabaster window depicting the Holy Spirit. Every February 22, the altar of Peter's Chair is decorated with dozens of lighted candles, while the familiar black sculpture of St. Peter is dressed in full papal regalia.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/022211.shtml


OR for 2/21-2/22/11:

At the Angelus, the Pope speaks of Christian witness
'Lives shaped by love'
Other papal stories in this issue: The consistory that approved the canonization of three Blesseds - two Italian priests and a Spanish nun, all founders of religious orders - to take place on Oct. 23; and the elevation of six cardinal-deacons at their request to the rank of cardinal priests, thus elevating Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran (photo above), who has elected to remain a cardinal-deacon for now, to the post of Proto-Deacon of the College of Cardinals - in which role he would make the 'Habemus Papam' announcement after the next papal conclave. Top Page 1 international news is the escalating popular uprising in Libya which may well bring down Muammar Khaddafi's 41-year rule. At the Paris G20 summit, China prevails over the Western industrialized nations by blocking a proposal to make outstanding national debt and foreign currency reserves external criteria for determining financial instability, and by not giving in to US demands for a revaluation of the yuan. A Stockholm group monitoring the arms trade says it is the only business that has not undergone any crisis - with a total of $400 billion in arms sales in 2009, representing an 8% increase over 2008, and a 59% increase compared to the trade volume in 2002.

No papal events announced for today.

The Vatican released the Holy Father's message for Lent, which begins on March 9, at a news conference this morning.




Papal nominations made known today include -

- Mons. Gérald Cyprien Lacroix, I.S.P.X., until now Auxiliary Bishop, to be the Metropolitan Archbishop of Quebec (Canada)

- Mons. Edward Joseph Adams, who has been the Apostolic Nuncio in the Philippines, now reassigned to Greece

- Mons. Joseph Kalathiparambil, till now Bishop of Calicut (India), as secretary of the Pontifical Council
for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Workers;


FEAST OF PETER'S CHAIR


Left, Bernini's altar of Peter's Chair - the Church Doctors holding up the Chair are, on the left, Augustine and John Chrysostom, and on the right, Athanasius and Ambrose. Center, the altar with the lighted candles on Feb. 22; right, Arnolfo di Cambio's sculpture of St. Peter, dressed in papal regalia every Feb. 22.

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The Latin liturgy celebrates today the feast of the Chair of St. Peter. It comes from a very ancient tradition, chronicled at Rome from the end of the 4th century, which renders thanks to God for the mission entrusted to the Apostle Peter and to his successors.

The cathedra, literally, is the fixed seat of the Bishop, found in the mother church in a diocese, which for this reason is called "cathedral," and is the symbol of the authority of the Bishop and, in particular, of his "magisterium," the evangelical teaching which he, as a successor of the Apostles, is called to maintain and pass on to the Christian community.

When the Bishop takes possession of the particular Church entrusted to him, he, wearing the mitre and carrying the pastoral staff, is seated in the cathedra. From that seat he will guide, as teacher and pastor, the path of the faithful in faith, in hope and in love....

Dear Brothers and Sisters, in the apse of St. Peter's Basilica, as you know, can be found the monument to the Chair of the Apostle, Bernini's oldest work, realized in the form of a great bronze throne, held up by statues of four Doctors of the Church, two from the West, St. Augustine and St. Ambrose, two from the east, St. John Chrysostom and St. Athanasius.

I invite you to stand before this evocative work, which today is decorated with many candles, and pray in a particular way for the ministry which God has entrusted to me. Raising our gaze to the alabaster window which opens over the Chair, invoking the Holy Spirit, may He always sustain with his light and strength my daily service to all the Church.

BENEDICT XVI
February 22, 2006

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- CNS finally has a story today
www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1100721.htm
based on Part 1 of an interview with FSSPX bishop Mons. Fellay posted last week on the US site of the Lefebvrians, which today posted Part 2 of the interview.

- A news report I have not posted is a story from this weekend about some Australian priests - 12 so far - saying they will not use the new English translation of the Mass. Father Z fisks that report thoroughly. Like the 400 Irtish priests who earlier dismissed the translation and demanded a five-year period of consultation with them before it goes into effect, the Australian dissidents claim they were not consulted.

Hey, was anyone consulted by the committee that hastily prepared the current English translation in time for the 1970 liturgical reform? How come everyone in the universal Church who obediently followed the Novus Ordo never complained about that translation which was always intended to be provisional, and now, there are those who quarrel with a translation that has gone through years of effort, review and revision by every English-speaking bishops' conference in the world - who can surely represent their flock in such an undertaking?

One must remember that the original translation provided by the English-speaking sons of Bugnini - and that has been in use since 1970 - was not an exact translation of the Paul VI Missal in its so-called 'typical' or standard edition in Latin, but much more of an adaptation to the protestantizing tendencies of the liturgical reformists at the time. This prompted John Paul II to finally issue, through the Congregation of Divine Worship, the March 2001 Instruction Liturgiam authenticam requiring that in translations of the liturgical texts from the official Latin original, "the original text, insofar as possible, must be translated integrally and in the most exact manner, without omissions or additions in terms of their content, and without paraphrases or glosses. Any adaptation to the characteristics or the nature of the various vernacular languages is to be sober and discreet." That was the canonical basis for the new English translation which will be universally in force by Advent this year, and which is translated from the 2002 typical edition (the third one) of the Novus Ordo.

A prayer is a prayer, especially if its adapted as a universal standard - you may not like the translation, but live with it: It is no less valid because you don't like it! - All you have to do is use it often enough, until it becomes second nature.

By the preposterous pretext that these dissident priests make about the new translation, they probably would not say the Our Father in the beautiful archaic English we all learned! This is just one instance of how corrosive and corrupting the so-called 'spirit of Vatican II' has been for so many of our fellow Catholics, who have discarded the rule of obedience in the faith, and have made it their existential choice to oppose the Church and the Pope as much as they can and as often as they can, from trivial and relatively unimportant matters to the essential tenets of the faith...