BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Benedict XVI's decision to revive the use of the papal fanon does not need to be defended - it is a prerogative exclusive to him as Pope. It is not as if he suddenly decided to revive the use of the papal tiara (the three-tiered crown used by the Popes up to John Paul I)! And it is not as if the fanon were some egregiously ornate bejeweled accessory rather than the simple lightly-quilted double capelet that it is.

As a liturgical garment, it is every bit as legitimate as the alb, amice and chasuble that every priest wears to celebrate the Eucharist. In fact, it is considered analogous to the amice, the cloth that goes over the priest's alb and covers the priest's shoulders as the fanon does, but is fastened to the priest's torso by cloth strings. When putting on the amice, over his head and down to his shoulders, the priest asks God to clothe him with the "helmet of salvation"... In this interview, liturgist Fr. Nicola Bux says more about the fanon and Benedict XVI's use of liturgical vestments.

'One never consigns
the sacred to a museum'
by Francisco Grana
Translated from
ORTICALAB
Oct. 22, 2012

"One never consigns the sacred to the museum," says Fr. Nicola Bux unhesitatingly when asked about Benedict XVI's decision to use the papal fanon, considered by many critics to be obsolete, and reinforcing his detractors' accusation that this Pope is retrograde and has a predilection for using garments that belong to a museum.

Bux, who is a consultor at the Congregations for the Doctrine of the Faith and for the Causes of Sainthood, as well as the Office of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations, is a longtime friend of the Pope, who in 1997, presented his book, Il quinto sigillo (The fifth seal).

Precisely as consultor to Mons. Guido Marini's office, Fr. Bux has collaborated in modifications to papal liturgies which the faithful and the rest of the world have noted from televised broadcasts in the past seven years.

As they did again on Sunday, Oct. 21, when the Pope canonized seven new saints and celebrated the Eucharist.

For the first time in his Pontificate, Papa Ratzinger wore the papal fanon, which was last used by John Paul II in 1987 [apparently the only time he used it].

Don Nicola, why did Benedict XVI decide to wear the fanon?
The fanon, worn over the chasuble, is made up of two super=imposed capelets - the lower one is longer than the top layer. It is of white cloth striped perpendicularly with gold, sometimes highlighted in purple or red. A gold cross is embroidered on the top capelet where it rests on the Pope's chest. [Good description, but it did not answer the question!]

What is the liturgical significance of the fanon?
It symbolizes the shield of faith (cfr Eph 6.16) that protects the Catholic Church represented by the Pope. The stripes, which can be gold or silver, represent the unity and indissolubility of the Church, both Latin and Oriental.

For the first time yesterday, the rite of canonization preceded the Mass. Likewise, the last public consistory for the creation of new cardinals last February, and for the past three years at least, the Calenda rite of the Christmas Eve Mass. What is the reason for separating these rites from the Mass itself?
In order to underscore the difference between the rites that belong properly to the Eucharistic celebration, and any other additional and exceptional celebration. There has been a tendency to 'pad' the Mass with other rites, or to mix in unwarranted rites or even to superimpose other sacramental rites. This all results in blurring for the faithful the essentials of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, as well as of the individual sacraments or sacramental rites, and converts the Mass into a palimpsest of rituals that one can fill in as one wishes.

[I wish the interviewer had asked Fr. Bux about the sacraments of Baptism, Matrimony and Holy Orders that are still performed within a Mass. So far, Benedict XVI has performed the Easter Vigil and Epiphany Baptisms within a Mass. I have not paid attention to these subtleties, but perhaps the Novus Ordo indicates that these sacraments are to be performed within a Mass.]

Is there not the risk of a negative image for Benedict XVI to believers and the rest of the world, because he wears liturgical garments that have not been in recent use and who is continually making changes to the liturgies that he presides over? [It's an unwarrantedly tendentious question. 1) Benedict XVI has not added anything to his liturgical vestments other than the fanon, to which he is entitled exclusively, and he wears a Roman chasuble as against the poncho-like Novus Ordo chasuble perhaps once for every nine times he wears the Novus Ordo chasuble. 2) The modifications made to the liturgies are not to the Mass itself - he follows the Novus Ordo rigorously - but to the chronological order of the supplemental rite relative to the Mass, and he has sensibly opted to hold them before the Mass. In that way, the 'main event' for which most of the faithful would be attending the liturgy is over and done with, before the Mass, to which the faithful can then devote their attention fully and undistracted.]
No risk at all. Rather, this is a signal of continuity within the Church - what was always considered sacred remains sacred. The fanon was also worn by John Paul II, Paul VI, John XXIII and Pius XII. [The Vatican said that the fanon used by Benedict VXI yesterday was that of Paul VI.]

It must be understood that liturgical vestments do not follow the criteria of secular fashion - they are intended to render glory to God as part of the liturgy for which they are worn. Priests and bishops, including the Pope, are ministers, which means 'servants' - the Pope is by definition servus servorum Dei, servant of the servants of God - and therefore, before the divine majesty, they must present themselves with maximum dignity.

The 'richness' of liturgical vestments are a sign of appropriate worship, even if they are never really adequate to God's glory, but this outward signs must be matched by purity of heart and chastity of the body, as St. Francis writes in his Letter to the Faithful.

One never consigns the sacred to a museum. The contemporary tendency to 'museify' sacred garments and accessories has something of the pathological, when it is not justified by reasons of conservation. Liturgical vestments are largely donations from the faithful, especially those who want to confer splendor to our worship of God.
[Benedict XVI mostly uses garments worn by his predecessors, except for a couple that were ordered especially for him, and those that he receives as gifts when he makes pastoral visits in Italy.]

As for the modifications to some rites, they also correspond to the exigency of restoring what has been deformed (due to abuses or misuse over time or by yielding to momentary 'fashion'), in order to allow the rites to express more clearly the Church lex credendi.

For example: Unlike beatifications, canonization is a solemn act of the Papal Magisterium exclusively, during which the Pope declares ex cathedra [literally, in this case, 'from the chair' of Peter]], and therefore, infallibly, that some of his children are enjoying a beatific vision of God in Paradise, and therefore they can be invoked as intercessors and held up as examples for the universal Church and not just for their local Churches.