Online Prayers for the Pope
The Web is creating a worldwide prayer room.
You can light a candle and offer a prayer. Or send a prayer request to the Carmelite nuns of Indianapolis who keep an online site called “Pray the News.”
Daily Guideposts includes online prayer requests for all sorts of topics.
Practically every faith has oodles of chat boards for prayer requests and prayer circles. Here is one prayer circle for Catholics.
I think this is an interesting site. You can send a prayer to specific shrines.
Catholic Glossary
I don’t know about you, but I need a glossary that I can turn to in order to understand all of the terms we will be dealing with in the days ahead. Here you go.
Here is another nicely done glossary by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
Here is a glossary just for the Celebration of Mass.
Why do you need this? Read on to the next item!
Last Rites
A lot of us writing about the Pope’s condition mentioned the phrase “Last Rites” which prompted this note to me from Laura K. Negri, Publications Adviser, Alief Kerr High School, Houston, Texas:
The sacrament of Anointing of the Sick has not been called “Last Rites” by the Church for some time. As your brief notes, it is administered to Catholics who are seriously ill, not just those who are on their deathbeds. The Pope has probably received the sacrament several times in his life.
I dislike hearing those in the media refer to the sacrament incorrectly, because it is a demonstration of ignorance; it’s like saying Jews “celebrate” Yom Kippur or Christians “celebrate” Good Friday (“observe” is accurate — such solemn events are not causes for celebration). And in both the Schiavo case and the Pope’s, I have not yet heard it stated correctly on national or local TV. You could do a lot to correct that misinformation by clarifying the term in your Morning Meeting.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops website explains more:
http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt2sect2chpt2art5.htm
Beliefnet said: The Last Rites are officially called the Viaticum.
Since it apparently is not the correct phrase to use it may not matter much now, but we had some debate minutes before publishing Friday morning about whether Last Rites should be capitalized or not. We decided it should be, but several newspapers and websites thought otherwise. Our reasoning was that since it was a specific holy sacrament, it should be capitalized. But if it was not a specific sacrament, if we were talking about last rites more generally as a concept, then it would not be. I have a lot of editing experts who read this column, so feel free to weigh in on the question by going to the comments section.
The Wiki Pope
Wikipedia has an amazing site that is worth your time.
Who is Running the Church?
While the pope is sick, who’s running the church?
The National Catholic Reporter included a lengthy article explaining how things work when the Pope is incapacitated.
There’s a bit of mythology behind this question, which is that a healthy pope makes all the decisions in the Catholic Church. In fact, Catholicism is one of the most decentralized organizations on earth — 2,650 employees in the Roman Curia for a population of 1.1 billion Catholics worldwide. If the same ratio of bureaucrats to citizens were applied to the United States, exactly 500 people would work for the federal government, instead of the hundreds of thousands currently on the federal payroll. Most decisions that matter are made by bishops’ conferences, local bishops, and parishes.
Hitting the Pope’s Head with a Hammer?
Yes, it was part of what happens when a Pope dies, believe it or not. But hitting the deceased Pope in the head with a hammer is apparently no longer is a part of the tradition. Still, Al’s Morning Meeting reader Chad Bresson sent me links to many stories that disagree about whether this practice of striking the Pope in the head with a hammer to be sure he is not just sleeping continues.
These stories say they still do it:
Immediately on the death of a pope the cardinal camerlengo who, as representative of the Sacred College, assumes charge of the papal household, verifies by a judicial act the death of the pontiff. In the presence of the household he strikes the forehead of the dead pope three times with a silver mallet, calling him by his baptismal name. The fisherman’s ring and the papal seals are then broken. A notary draws up the act which is the legal evidence of the pope’s death. The obsequies last nine days.
Meanwhile the cardinals have been notified of the impending election and those resident in Rome (in Curia) await their absent brethren, assisting in the meantime at the functions for the deceased pontiff. All cardinals, and they alone, have the right to vote in the conclave; they must, however, be legitimately appointed, have the use of reason, and be present in person, not through a procurator or by letter. This right is acknowledged even if they are subject to ecclesiastical censures (e.g., excommunication), or if the solemn ceremonies of their “creation” have yet to be performed. During the aforesaid nine days, and until the election of a successor, all cardinals appear with uncovered rochets, just as all have canopies over their seats at the conclave, to show that the supreme authority is in the hands of the whole College.
The cardinal camerlengo is assisted by the heads of the three cardinalitial orders, known as the “Capita Ordinum” (cardinal-bishops, -priests, -deacons). There are frequent meetings, or “congregations,” of these four cardinals to determine every detail both of the obsequies of the pope and of the preparations for the conclave. All matters of importance are referred to the general congregations, which since 1870 are held in the Vatican. The cardinal dean (always the Bishop of Ostia) presides over these congregations, in which the cardinals take rank and precedence from the date of their elevation to the purple. Formerly they had also to provide for the government of the Papal States and to repress frequent disorders during the interregnum. In the first of these congregations the various Constitutions which govern the conclave are read and the cardinals take an oath to observe them. Then, in the following days, the various officers of the conclave, the conclavists, confessors, and physicians, servants of various kinds, are examined or appointed by a special commission. Each cardinal has a right to take into the conclave a secretary and a servant, the secretary being usually an ecclesiastic. In case of illness a third conclavist may be allowed, with agreement of the general congregation. All are equally sworn to secrecy and also not to hinder the election. After the conclave certain honorary distinctions and pecuniary emoluments are awarded to the conclavists.
Meanwhile a conclave, formerly a large room, now a large part of the Vatican palace, including two or three floors, is walled off, and the space divided into apartments, each with three or four small rooms or cells, in each of which are a crucifix, a bed, a table and a few chairs. Access to the conclave is free through one door only, locked from without by the Marshal of the Conclave (formerly a member of the Savelli, since 1721 of the Chigi, family), and from within by the cardinal camerlengo. There are four openings provided for the passage of food and other necessaries, guarded from within and without, on the exterior by the authority of the marshal and major-domo, on the interior by the prelate assigned to this duty by the three cardinals (mentioned in the Morning Meeting item below), representative of the three cardinalitial orders. Once the conclave begins the door is not again opened until the election is announced, except to admit a cardinal who is late in arriving. All communication with the outside is strictly forbidden under pain of loss of office and ipso facto excommunication. A cardinal may leave the conclave in case of sickness (certified under oath by a physician) and return; not so a conclavist. It may be noted at once, with Wernz, that a papal election held outside of a properly organized conclave is canonically null and void.
What if Cardinals Can’t Agree on a Successor?
It has happened before.
734 years ago, in 1271, it took more than two and a half years to select a new Pope. That frustrating exercise is the origin of the “conclave” which even included the cutting back of food to the Cardinals if they could not agree after five days of talking. In fact, the rules put into place after that selection in 1271 included secluding the Cardinals from all outside communication. Food would be shoved through a window. After five days of talking they were cut to two meals a day. After seven days, it was bread, water and wine — that’s it. If a Cardinal had to leave the room he was locked out unless it was for an illness. Not long after the rules took place, the next selections started going a lot faster. The next selections were made in days, not years.
The Catholic Encyclopedia explained the background:
The Tenth Ecumenical Synod (Lateran) in 1139 restricted, however, the entire choice to the cardinals, and in 1179, another Lateran Council under Alexander III made the rule that the pope is to be chosen by a two-thirds majority of the electors who are present. This last decree did not state what was to be done in case such a majority could not be obtained. When the cardinals found themselves face to face with this contingency on the death of Clement IV in 1268, they commissioned six cardinals as plenipotentiaries to decide on a candidate. The vacancy of the Holy See had lasted for two years and nine months. To prevent a recurrence of this evil, the Second Council of Lyons under Gregory X (1274) decreed that ten days after the pope’s decease, the cardinals should assemble in the palace in the city in which the pope died, and there hold their electoral meetings, entirely shut out from all outside influences. If they did not come to an agreement on a candidate in three days, their victuals were to be lessened, and after a further delay of five days, the food supply was to be still further restricted. This is the origin of conclaves.
How Succession Works
· Vatican radio — a site to monitor — is the Vatican’s special events radio channel.
· Religion and Ethics Weekly did an excellent job explaining how succession and selection works.
What are the rules? R & E Weekly explained:
“Under current rules, after the death, or resignation of a pope, Cardinals under the age of 80 have between 15 and 20 days to gather in Rome for the conclave. Until a new pope is elected, the College of Cardinals governs the church, but with limited powers. When the Cardinals meet to elect a pope, first of all, they’re locked up so that they cannot be influenced by anything from the outside, and also so they can maintain secrecy. There will be no cell phones, no radios, no newspapers, no telephones, no communication with the outside world. During the next conclave, most of the Cardinals will stay in Saint Martha’s House, a new $20-million-dollar hotel-like complex.”
5 Reasons Why the Pope Didn’t Resign
The National Catholic Reporter offered explanations:
Division: If the pope resigned and the cardinals elected another one, the church would in effect have two popes, with the risk that some Catholics would be loyal to the old one and some to the new.
Witness: Many observers believe John Paul II is offering a precious witness to the world about bearing suffering with dignity, and about the inherent value of every human life. That witness would not have the same impact from a retired pope.
Ecclesiology: The pope is not a corporate CEO or a prime minister, but fundamentally a father of the spiritual family Catholicism understands itself to be. Some think it would send the wrong signal about the nature of the church for the pope to step down for reasons of efficiency.
Mysticism: John Paul II believes his pontificate is in the hands of God; this is a pope, after all, who believes that on May 13, 1981, the Virgin Mary altered the flight path of a bullet to keep him alive. He is unlikely to ever feel that it’s up to him to decide when to quit.
There is, of course, a more mundane reason why some Catholics, including some in the Vatican, don’t want the pope to resign. Those who favor his policies want them to continue, and those whose jobs depend upon his tenure don’t want to be out of work.
Encarta has a piece called “7 Things you should know about the Pope.”
Vatican Pay Phone
I have tried calling it several times and I can’t get through — so I cannot verify if it is still working — but The Payphone Project, which lists payphone numbers around the world, says this phone is in the basement of the Vatican.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor’s Note: Al’s Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts, and other materials from a variety of websites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed, and a link will be provided, whenever possible.
