The lack of halo effect

If the monks who taught me had a fault, it was an attachment to the European Union that was not so much excessive as beyond all reason. At some point an especially europhile headmaster had the "European" flag (the twelve stars from Revelation 12:1, but that is no excuse) flown from the Abbey Tower on great occasions.  It was only following loud protests from boys in the school that the Union Flag was flown instead.

Countries that use the euro (the currency, not the species of small kangaroo)  are allowed to use their own designs on one face of the coins they issue. Slovakia decided to commemorate the 1,150th anniversary of the arrival of Christianity by minting coins displaying Saints Cyril and Methodius, two monks (brothers in fact) who preached the Gospel to the Slavs. The European Commission, the enforcement arm of the EU, ordered Slovakia to remove the halos from the two saints' heads and the crosses from Methodius' pallium. This was prompted by complaints from France and Greece,

apparently because it considers the Greek-born monks Cyril and Methodius as part of its own heritage.

Official France's pompous secularism surprises nobody but yikes the Greeks are the most cranky dogs in the manger. (They also whine about another country's choice of name.) I wonder what they would say if Russia put Cyril and Methodius on their coins?

Anyway it seems Slovakia stood its ground and the coins have now been issued. 

Gus and Tommy Latine

Augustinus.it provides the complete works of St Augustine in Latin and Italian. They are organised according the Augustine volumes in Patrologia Latina (PL 32-46). For some reason PL 46 is not included in the "elenchus" on the left but the sermons in that volume can be found by searching "PL 46" in the Tavola Cronologica. Unfortunately it does not include the prefatory material found in the printed volumes. This means it is no help in deciphering the PDF of this discussion of the text of sermones inediti.

There is also a page of links to English translations of his works. Apart from those listed there, I don't know of any others.

Corpus Thomisticum is a site with the complete works of St Thomas Aquinas, courtesy of the University of Navarre. There is also a collection of links to volumes of the Leonine edition on archive.org.

New Advent only has a translation of the Summa Theologica, done by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province in 1920. The Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. offers the complete works of Aquinas in more recent translations. (Bookmark that link because there is no obvious way to navigate there from the homepage). It was novices at the DHS who produced that charming work Lives of the Dominican Saints. I wouldn't mention that, except that it always makes Dominicans squirm when I do.

Remember Anamnesis


Behold the homepage of Anamnesis, the bulletin of the liturgical commission of the Polish Bishops' conference. ("Anamnsis" at the top of the page is simply a typo, it is of course simply the Greek word for the memorial sacrifice of Num 10:10, alluded to in Lk 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:25).

In 2004 I discovered that the editio typica tertia of Missale Romanum included some new saints in the calendar. This is the Universal Calendar, also called the General Calendar. Local churches at the diocesan or national level are expected to modify the calendar usually by adding local saints or sometimes by increasing the importance of the celebration.

This being the Missal – to be used at Mass – it does not have texts for the Liturgy of the Hours (the "Divine Office", often simply just the "Office"). Using as a search text the collect (which is the same as the concluding prayer in the Office) of one of the additions to the calendar, I discovered that the Polish Bishops had put the Latin texts of additions to the Divine Office online. Additions to the liturgical books are published in the journal of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Notitiae which was not, and is not, published online. However all the decrees from the Congregation pertaining to the Universal Church, including such additions to the calendar are, as a matter of course, published in Latin in Anamnesis.


Go to Komisja Kultu Bożego i Dyscypliny Sakramentów Episkopatu Polski (that takes you to the Anamnesis page).  Look at the column on the left hand side of the screen. Indeksy numerów 1-26 takes you to indexes for the first 26 issues. These are not very helpful as they are not hyperlinked. Issues 1-7 are not online. Click on Numer 8 to find out why. "Od Redakcij" means "From the Editor", this issue was published on 1st November 1996. When I refer to the "Editorial" of a given issue of Anamnesis in what follows, I mean whatever you read by clicking on "Od Redakcij".

Also in issue 8, "Przygotowanie do wprowadzania katecumenatu w diecezjach - materiały z Sympozjum Katechumenalnego Sandomierz - 16 i 17 września 1996" is the proceedings (I guess) of a conference held on and 17th September on the history of the rites of initiation. "Informacje" means "Information". "Spis treści means "table of contents". Click on that and you will get links to two pdfs, one of which is in dear old English, and we read:
After publication of seven issues of Anamnesis (1994-1996) – Bulletin of the Polish Episcopal Commission for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments which was designed for the Polish Bishops – a new edition of Anamnesis is being started which is addressed to people responsible for liturgy and liturgical pastoral care in the Church in Poland, anxious for more intense renewal of the Church by more conscious, active and deepened participation of all the Christians in the Liturgy. The editorial design is to create a meeting forum for the two directions of the liturgical renewal: the one “from above” (institutional) and one “from below”.
The editorials are often undated so it is hard to determine the frequency. The editorial for issue 20 is dated 28th November 1999.

The important thing for our purposes (well, OK, my purposes) is what is usually the first section of an issue of Anamnesis: Dokumenty Stolicy Apostolskiej - Documents of the Apostolic See. These are typically decress from the Congregation DWDS. Number 22 contains the authorisation for the Polish texts for the office of Blessed Pius of Pietrelcina (as he then was, i.e. Padre Pio). The decree from the Vatican is dated 26th November 1999, but the editorial is dated 1st June 2000. The series is clearly not regular since issue 26 has an editorial dated 2nd June 2001 and there is clearly a lag between the promulgation of the decree and its publication in Anamnesis. Issue 31 has an editorial dated 18th May 2002 but its URL suggests that it has been linked to by mistake because the filename for the PDF is "Anamnesis30-0aRed" which is also what you get when you click through from "Od Redakcij" for issue 30. Issue 32 has an editorial dated November 16th 2002.

I labour over Anamnesis 31 because the second pdf among the Dokumenty Stolicy Apostolskiej in that issue is Dodatki do Liturgii Godzin - Additiones ad Liturgiam Horarum. This is the text in Latin of the additions to the Liturgy of the Hours made with the 3rd edition of Missale Romanum by a decree of the Congregation dated 18th December 2001. The next issue (32) contains the texts for the Mass and Office of Padre Pio decreed by the Congregation on 26th June 2002. Finally on 12th February 2004 the Congregation published texts for the Liturgies of St Juan Diego Cuauhtlotoatzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe.

So far as I can tell there have been no additions to the Universal Calendar since 2004. Granted you have to wrestle with Polish but Anamnesis is a useful resource.

Propers done properly

In the Hall of Merton College hangs a portrait of a clean shaven man staring intently at a book on a stand to his right. It is the Franciscan theologian John Duns Scotus, reputed to have been a Fellow – or at any rate a member – of the college in the thirteenth century. I remember Jasper Griffin remarking during a seminar at Merton, as the sounds of first year lawyers celebrating the end of examinations wafted up into the room, that such things had been happening "since the days of Duns Scotus". Not that he intended any approbation  of the practice of "trashing". Being a Balliol man I think he was amused by Merton's claims to seniority and was using Scotus' name as a facetious authority to a widespread but officially disapproved practice.

On (presumably) 8th November 1997 I was walking with a friend to college for breakfast when we fell into step with the Chaplain. He remarked that it was the Feast of Blessed John Duns Scotus (hence my guess of the date). The Chaplain was CofE of course, and both of us were Catholics, but we had to confess we knew nothing about him. "Well he did believe in the Immaculate Conception," said the Chaplain. "So on the side of the angels?" I ventured. "Yes, but not on the side of God," was the testy reply.

Scotus died in Cologne in 1308. On 20th March 1993 Pope John Paul II confirmed that he was beatified. Strictly speaking, since this was based on a cultus immemorabilis, he was not in fact beatified on that date. The cult is limited to the Diocese of Cologne and the Franciscan order. The city of Oxford is at the southern end of the Diocese of Birmingham which has Blessed Agnello of Pisa, an early Franciscan who worked there, in its calendar. Presumably it is thought two early Franciscans would be a bit much.

You can see a screen grab from the virtual tour of Merton College on the left. A clearer black and white image is on the right.

You can see a screen grab from the virtual tour of Merton College on the left. A clearer black and white image is on the right.

A few years ago I went looking for propers for Scotus' feast day. I found my way to the website of the Diocese of Cologne, to this page. Once upon a time all dioceses did something similar. I have a Breviary printed at Tours in 1954 with the "Officia propria Archidiœcesis Birminghamiensis", all in Latin, bound in as a supplement at the back. This is not some shonky "tipping in". The whole thing is a robust construction which I foresee will survive for many years. I also have a Supplementum ad Breviarium et Missale Romanum Adjectis Officiis Sanctorum Angliae. This was printed by Messrs Keating & Brown, printers to the Vicar Apostolic, in 1823 – six years before the Catholic Relief Act.

Nowadays when official repression is nothing like that in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and when what repression which exists is often gleefully cheered on – if not initiated – by well placed gangs of soi-disant Catholics, nothing like the same effort is put into preparing native liturgical books. You are expected to cull the the propers from the Common of Saints. Birmingham produces a staple bound A4 book with propers for Mass – in English mind – but that is about it.

So this production by the Diocese of Cologne is remarkable. It is in Latin. It is laid out for printing. Look rubrics! In red! The volumes correspond to the four volumes of Liturgia horarum not to the three volume Divine Office used in most English speaking Commonwealth countries. The latter is not without fault, mostly that you spend more than half the year with the (brown) volume iii in your hands which therefore deteriorates much more quickly. With Liturgia horarum after Epiphany and the end of volume i, you usually have a few weeks using volume iii before moving back to volume ii for Lent and Easter. Only after Pentecost is it a straight run through volumes iii and iv.

Cologne Supplement to the Office for Advent and Christmas [pdf]

Cologne Supplement to the Office for Lent and Easter [pdf]

Cologne Supplement to the Office for Weeks 1-17 [pdf]

Cologne Supplement to the Office for Weeks 18-34 [pdf]

The office for Blessed John Duns Scotus is in volume iv pages 53-55 of the pdf.

This is probably something all dioceses should be doing but so far as I know Cologne is the only one.

 

Ss Thomas Plus et Ioannes Piscator

The Familia Sancti Hieronymi or Family of St Jerome is an organisation from Clearwater in Florida on the western side of the Florida peninsula. It is
…a canonical association dedicated to the advancement of the Latin heritage of the Catholic Church, as it is reflected in the Church’s liturgy, in its sacred music, in its devotional life, in its official documents, and in its propagation of the Faith.
To that end they have produced various resources for learning Latin, not just to read and understand but to think in and speak it.  Browsing over their site I came across the Latin text of the Apostolic Letter of John Paul II which made St Thomas More the patron of politicians.
quibus Sanctus Thomas Morus gubernatorum, politicorum virorum ac mulierum proclamatur patronus
I was surprised since it is not conventional to Latinise surnames. In the Graduale Romanum and Antiphonale Monasticum – as well as in the supplement for the Archdiocese of Birmingham printed at the back of my 1954 Breviary – it is the feast "S. Thomae More", "of St Thomas More". He is also "Thomas More" in the latest edition of the Roman Martyrology.

I did wonder if this might be excess enthusiasm on the part of the FSH but the copy of the decree on the Vatican website has the same text. At the bottom is a reference to the Acts of the Apostolic See, where such decrees are formally published. There on page 76 of AAS 93 [2001] [pdf] we find
quibus sanctus Thomas Moras Guberaatorum, politicorum Virorum ac Mulierum proclamatur Patronus
I assume the typos (Moras for Morus etc.) are due to errors in the optical character recognition and not to errors in the original.

Thomas More was beatified with John Fisher and several others by Pope Leo XIII on 29th December 1886.  The decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites was published in Acta Sanctae Sedis (the predecessor of AAS), the Acts of the Holy See, ASS 19 [1886-87] [pdf] on page 347.
DECRETUM Westmonasterien. confirmationis cultus beatorum martyrum Ioannis Cardinalis Fisher, Thomae More et Sociorum in odium fidei ab anno 1535 ad 1583 in Anglia interemptorum.
I cannot construe the opening but the sense is "in confirmation of a decree made at Westminster of the cult of the blessed martyrs John Fisher, Thomas More and Companions slain from hatred of the faith between the years 1535 and 1583 in England". The point is that throughout the decree Thomas More's surname is not Latinised.

More and Fisher were canonised by Pope Pius XI on 9th May 1935. The entry for "More (B.) Thomas" in the index to AAS 27 [1935] [pdf] on page 551 is as follows:
de martyrio et causa martyrii, 86; consistorium secretum, 129; causae relatio, 133; consistorium publicum et causae peroratio, 141 ; decretum de tuto, 159; consistorium semipublicum, 201; in solemni canonizatione, 202; homilia B. P. de eodem, 204.
The first document is a decree by the Sacred Congregation of Rites. He is "Thomas More" throughout with his Christian name in the appropriate Latin declension. The next is a minute of a private consistory  of the College of Cardinals of 1st April 1935 including an allocution by the Pope. On page 30 he says
…rogemus de beatis martyribus Ioanne S. R. E. Card. Fishero Episcopo Boffensi, ac Thoma Moro Magno Angliae Cancellario sanctitudinis palma decorandis.
…we ask whether the blessed martyrs John Cardinal Fisher Bishop of Rochester, and Thomas More Lord Chancellor of England may be endowed with the palm of sanctity.
Note that the surnames of both men are declined as second declension Latin nouns. There follows, on page 141, the minute of a public consistory held on April 4th. In the Latin explanatory note they are "Fisher" and "More" but in the text of the speech by Monsignor Bacci, Secretary of Briefs to Princes (one of the Pope's Latinists), they are "Fisherus" and "Morus".

The decretum de tuto on page 159 is the equivalent for a canonisation of the decree on beatification from 1886 quoted above. In the title and in the text they are "Fisher" and "More".

The semipublic consistory of 9th May 1935 is the actual canonisation. Again, in the explanatory note at the top, they are "Fisher" and "More" and, again, in the Pope's speech of introduction, they are "Fisherus" and "Morus" declined appropriately.

The pattern so far is clear. In the more bureaucratic texts the surnames are kept in their English forms but in the more solemn papal pronouncements (Bacci is said to be speaking in the name of the Pope) they are Latinised. However the formula of canonisation is as follows.
Ad honorem Sanctae et individuae Trinitatis, ad exaltationem fidei catholicae et christianae Religionis augmentum, auctoritate Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, Beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli ac Nostra; matura deliberatione praehabita et divina ope saepius implorata, ac de Venerabilium Fratrum Nostrorum S. R. E. Cardinalium, Patriarcharum, Archiepiscoporum et Episcoporum in Urbe existentium consilio, Beatum IOANNEM FISHER, S. R. Ecclesiae Cardinalem et Beatum THOMAM MORE, laicum, Sanctos esse decernimus et definimus, ac Sanctorum catalogo adscribimus; statuentes ab Ecclesia universali illorum memoriam quolibet anno, die eorum natali, nempe IOANNIS die vigesima secunda Iunii et THOMAE die sexta Iulii inter Sanctos Martyres pia devotione recoli debere. In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.
To the honour of the Holy and indivisible Trinity, for the exaltation of the catholic faith and the growth of the christian Religion, by the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and of Ourselves; after mature deliberation and often imploring divine assistance, and by the advice of Our Venerable Brothers the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Patriarchs, Archbishops and Bishops present in Rome, we determine and define that Blessed JOHN FISHER, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and Blessed THOMAS MORE, layman, are Saints and we insert them in the catalogue of the Saints; decreeing that their feast on their day of death every year – namely for JOHN on June 22nd and for THOMAS on July 6th – is to be celebrated with loving devotion by the universal Church. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
So in the most solemn of the documents their surnames are not Latinised but in the homily immediately following they are. (N.B. "dies natalis" in the Latin literally means "birthday" but it refers to the day of a saint's death). In the gardens of Allen Hall Seminary in Chelsea is a mulberry tree planted by a previous owner of the land. Thomas More did own the land on which the seminary now stands and the mulberry was supposedly planted by him because he was attracted by the Latin word for it, "morus". I guess Fisherus was used for consistency.