The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Anecdotal Evidence from Italy

(For what it's worth)

July 31st 2005 (Part Two)

The Pope at Istod last Monday with the Priests of the Diocese of Aosta in closed door session.
Looking very pensive !

Since yesterday's update the internet has been all a-buzz with speculation on what prompted the Pope's remarks to priests behind closed doors last Monday.

My purpose with this update is to report some encouraging news just received from a parishioner who has returned after several months of vacation with his family in Italy. He told me he kept abreast of developments here at Our Lady of Fatima each week by reading this column - I told him that his information would be the subject of my next one (we both laughed).

Unable to find the Traditional Mass in his location he attended the Novus Ordo Mass at the local Church over the road. There were several notable differences since the election of Pope Benedict XVI: First, the priests preached longer than before, and their preaching was more geared to the explanation of the Faith, to the Blessed Sacrament, indeed this catechetical approach mirrors very much the style of the current Pontiff's preaching as he is beginning to show himself to be a great teacher.

As an aside the Italian journalist Sandro Magister had an interesting observation to make when he contrasted the public Masses of John Paul II and Benedict XVI and the congregation's reaction to the homily at Mass:

But for his part, Benedict XVI is captivating the crowds.

The same masses of the faithful that applauded the gestures or striking phrases of pope Karol Wojtyla, while almost completely missing what it was that he was talking about, are doing the opposite with the new pope. They follow Ratzinger's homilies word for word, from beginning to end, with an attentiveness that astonishes the experts. Verifying this takes nothing more than mingling among the crowds in attendance at a Mass celebrated by the pope.

From an interesting article analyzing the Pope's first 3 months in office

Back to the anecdotal evidence: next the giving of the peace (hand-shaking) was discontinued at the Masses my parishioner attended and this at Masses celebrated by two different priests. There was an atmosphere of more reverence than he remembered before. In news from a friend of his who tried to take some relatives to the Vatican - they were refused entrance because, as they were told, they were not sufficiently dressed, one of the ladies was not wearing a skirt as the new modesty standards at St Peter's seem now to require ! The same rule was in force at Palermo Cathedral he told me, but that "was always the case" he said.

+TF