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Last weekend was a busy one for Pope Benedict, for millions of Italians who were on holiday Saturday, December 8, feast of the “Immaculata,” the Immaculate Conception, and for yours truly as I spent two delightful days with Julie and Bryan Tuck who run the Marian Center in Petoskey, Michigan.

If their names seem familiar, it is because the Marian Center organizes a wonderful and very popular Marian congress every fall at the Boyne Mountain resort near Petoskey. I spoke at the Congress last year - and reported on it in this column - and the Tucks and I became fast friends in the process.

Julie and Bryan – who had never been to Rome – were in the Eternal City thanks to a niece, Lea and her husband Michael, who were also in Rome with their 22-month old son Grant. Michael has relatives in Italy and they spent a lot of time with those family members, time with Julie and Bryan and we finally met yesterday when they came to Santa Susanna’s for Mass.

Saturday morning Julie and Bryan and I attended Mass at the North American College as December 8th is the seminary’s patronal feast day. Archbishop Aquila of Denver was the principal celebrant in the presence of 127 cardinals bishops and priests, including Cardinals O’Brien, O’Malley, Rigali, Stafford and Levada. The newest American Cardinal James Harvey joined everyone at lunch after Mass. Luncheon guests included a number of bishops, ambassadors, NAC board members and supporters and benefactors. It was a wonderful meal and is always a delightful and rewarding experience to break bread with seminarians from the U.S., Canada and Australia.

Mark Randall, NAC’s executive director of institutional development, showed us around the building and grounds, which I knew well but was a first time treat for the Tucks. After that tour the Tucks and I visited the Street Sweepers of Rome’s nativity scene, just minutes from my house. Dinner later at La Vittoria rounded out our day.

Lea, Michael and Grant joined us at Mass at Santa Susanna’s. Both couples had lost children (Lea and Michael a baby at 22 weeks and Julie and Bryan their 17-year old daughter Maria, one of 7 children, 6 months ago), and they prayed at the tomb of St. Felicity whom we all had just learned is the patron saint of parents who have lost a child. It was a very beautiful and touching experience for them and for me.

We had a great lunch in a restaurant near Pza. Navona (La Scaletta, if you’ll soon be visiting Rome) and then spent the afternoon visiting this historic square, which is always beautiful, but is especially wonderful and fun-filled at Christmas.

Both couples left today after a splendid nine days in Rome, filled with papal audiences and liturgies, sightseeing beyond description and lots of special times just chatting over delicious meals. They must have felt quite at home in one respect – the weather! It has been very cold and the wind was a bone marrow-chilling cold for several days.

I posted some video on Youtube from the always-beautiful Eucharistic celebration at the North American College and I hope in coming days to visit and film some of the highlights of Rome’s Christmas decorations, nativity scenes, etc. I have photos of some of the sights I visited with the Tucks but have not yet uploaded them, so stay tuned.

POPE PAYS TRIBUTE TO MARY IMMACULATE

Saturday, December 8, as I said earlier, is a holiday in both the Vatican and Italy and in many ways it is the “spiritual opening event” of the Christmas season, just as Piazza Navona inaugurates the more secular, profane side of the Christmas season in Rome with its grand opening on December 6. This historic square features countless stands selling everything from ornaments to nativity scenes to jewelry, paintings, cotton candy and clothing. There is a merry-go-round for the young and the young at heart, and lots of entertainment featuring jugglers, clowns, mimes, etc.

The feast of the Immaculate Conception was formally declared a dogma of the Church by Pope Pius IX on December 8, 1854. This dogma states that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without any stain of original sin ('macula' is stain in Latin). It was proclaimed four years before the apparitions in Lourdes, where the “Lady” appearing to St. Bernadette described herself as the “Immaculate Conception.”

Interestingly enough, a number of churches in Italy and Rome that were built before 1854 were called the church of the Conception. After 1854 they added the word Immaculate to their title, becoming the Church of the Immaculate Conception.

Saturday afternoon the Holy Father went to Piazza di Spagna - also known as the Spanish Steps for the celebrated stairway overlooking the square - for the traditional December 8 act of veneration to Mary Immaculate. He placed a floral wreath at the foot of the statue of Mary Immaculate that stands on a column in the square, directly in front of the Spanish embassy to the Holy See. The Colonna dell'Immacolata was erected in 1857 to commemorate the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Found in 1777 under a monastery, it is now topped with a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Pope Benedict arrived in the square for this traditional ceremony in a new popemobile – a custom-made, one-of-a-kind Mercedes-Benz M-Class SUV with quite a few special security features that he received the day earlier.

Compared to the previous popemobile, a modified M-Class from 2002, Mercedes extended the dome significantly to give the Pope more room and easier entry. Larger glass panels and better illumination also aim to make the pontiff more visible and seemingly more accessible to the crowds. The white vehicle’s central interior design feature is a “throne” or large armchair embroidered with Benedict’s coat of arms. Not surprisingly, Daimler did not go into detail regarding the vehicle’s security features.

Before his arrival, the Holy Father stopped briefly at the Church of the Most Holy Trinity to greet the Dominican Friars and the members of the Via Condotti Storeowners Association.

Once in the square, the Pope began his visit by offering a prayer, followed by a reading from the Apocalypse of St. John, a homily and the offering of a floral tribute to the image of the Virgin. In his address, in the presence of thousands of faithful who had braved very cold temperatures and strong winds to see him, Benedict XVI reflected on the Gospel of this solemnity, the Gospel of the Annunciation.

Earlier in the day, he recited the noon Angelus for the tens thousands of faithful in St. Peter’s Square.

HOLY FATHER OPENS “ECCLESIA IN AMERICA” CONGRESS

Sunday at noon, the Pope again recited the Angelus prayer to a packed St. Peter’s Square, and later that day addressed the “Ecclesia in America” International Congress that was inaugurated with a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

The congress, which ends Wednesday, December 12, feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, has been organized by the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and the Knights of Columbus in collaboration with the Institute for Guadalupan Studies. Its inspiration will be the work of the synod called by Blessed John Paul II in November and December 1997, that met on the theme, "Encounter with the living Jesus Christ: The way to conversion, communion and solidarity in America."

The Holy Father arrived at the basilica at 7 p.m., and addressed the participants. He said, “Jesus Christ's love and the power of His grace must take root ever more intensely in the hearts of the people, families and Christian communities of your nations, to allow them to progress with dynamism along the paths of harmony and fair progress."

Benedict noted that, “the Apostolic Exhortation ‘Ecclesia in America’ focuses on "current challenges and difficulties that present specific and complex characteristics. Indeed, secularism and various religious groups are spreading throughout the continent, giving rise to numerous problems. Education and the promotion of a culture of life are matters of fundamental urgency in view of a widespread mentality that tends to attack the dignity of the person and damage the institution of marriage and family. How can one fail to be concerned about painful situations of emigration, displacement or violence, especially when linked to organized crime, drug trafficking, corruption and arms dealing? And how should we face the painful inequalities and areas of poverty caused by questionable economic, political and social measures?"

The Catholic Church, he said, “is convinced that the light for an adequate solution can only come from the encounter with the living Christ, which gives rise to attitudes and ways of acting based on love and truth. This is the decisive force that will transform the American continent.” He encouraged “priests, deacons and consecrated men and women and pastoral agents to purify and strengthen their interior lives ever more fully through a sincere relationship with the Lord and a worthy and frequent reception of the sacraments. This will be encouraged by suitable catechesis and a correct and ongoing doctrinal formation marked by complete fidelity to the Word of God and the Church's Magisterium.”

SYNOD ON EVANGELIZATION: PROPOSITION 27

Proposition 27 : EDUCATION “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20). Education is a constitutive dimension of evangelization. To proclaim the Risen Jesus Christ is to accompany all human beings in their personal story, in their development and in their spiritual vocation. Education needs, at the same time, to promote everything that is true, good and beautiful that is a part of the human person, that is to say, to educate the mind and the emotions to appreciate reality. Children, teenagers and young people have a right to be evangelized and educated. The schools and Catholic universities respond in this way to this need. Public institutions should recognize and support this right. Schools should assist families in introducing children into the beauty of the faith. Schools offer a great opportunity to transmit the faith or at least to make it known. The Synod Fathers are grateful for the work of education carried out by thousands of teachers, male and female, in Catholic educational institutions in the five continents. Because of the singular role of teachers, it is important that they receive ongoing formation in carrying out their responsibilities. Schools must be free to teach. This freedom is an inalienable right. For this reason in order to ensure that our institutions are agents of evangelization and not just products of evangelization, the Synod: - Encourages Catholic educational institutions to do all that is possible to preserve their identity as ecclesial institutions; - Invites all teachers to embrace the leadership which is theirs as baptized disciples of Jesus, giving witness through their vocation as educators; and - Urges particular Churches, religious families, and all those who have responsibility in the educational institutions, to facilitate the co-responsibility of lay people, offering adequate formation and accompaniment for this.

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ON A SAD NOTE: Please pray for the respose of the soul of the papal nuncio to the Ivory Coast, Archbishop Ambrose Madtha, who was killed in a car accident in India yesterday. The Times of India noted that he was travelling back from the north-western town of Odienne to an ordination ceremony in the country's west when his car collided with another vehicle. "The apostolic nuncio died on the spot," said Mathieu Tehan, spokesman for the western diocese of Man where the ceremony was to take place. Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, in a statement read on national television, expressed his "deep regret" at the death and sent condolences to the church and Madtha's family.

Write to Joan at:
joansrome@ewtn.com 

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