Under the Roman Sun

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Under the Roman Sun

[2009-06-19]

[Engleză]

Much is happening in Rome: the departure of Archbishop Ranjith and the arrival of American theologian Augustine Di Noia in the liturgy Congregation have been officially announced; the Pope has issued a letter on the Year of the Priest, which begins tomorrow; the embattled editor of the Osservatore Romano has defended himself; Benedict has changed his doctor, while he continues to write his second book on Jesus; and I have spent a wonderful day with my son, Christopher, who just passed through the Eternal City on his way to Russia...

By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome

Rome is peaceful this week, even as the Vatican 'wraps up' the year of work in preparation for summer. So there are many things to report, but I thought I'd start with the most important to me: I just experienced a shining morning with my son, Christopher, who visited Rome for a day, after long absence. He was en route from the United State to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he will spend the summer studying the Russian language. Now he has gone, and the internet in our office is down, so here I am sitting in a cafe on the via delle Fornaci, just 100 yards from the Vatican, with my laptop, writing this newsflash...

Two days ago, Christopher, who is 19 and has been attending college in America, arrived with his fellow scholar, Will. After I picked them up at the airport, we walked at night through the old city, and ate at Mario's in Trastevere just before midnight.

Yesterday morning, we were able to go into the Vatican, where I had a brief meeting, and to see the hall of maps, which runs along the terza loggia (where the Secretariat of State is), and go out on the balcony overlooking the square. There we stood, in the blazing morning sun, silent at the scene spread out below.

The Pope was holding his general audience in a colorful, crowded square. (Years ago, when Christopher was just a year old, and his head a mass of yellow curls, we once met Joseph Ratzinger on the square, and the Pope picked Christopher up and held him.)

'I think this may be the single most beautiful construction of human art and architecture in the world,' Christopher said, looking down at Bernini's colonnade and up at the facade of the basilica. Then: 'Do you think we can still get to the Sistine Chapel, and into the basilica, to see the Pieta, before we go to the airport?'

'I don't think we have time,' I said. 'We'd have to go out and all around to the entrance to the Museums, to get to the chapel, and the basilica is closed now, during the audience...'

He seemed disappointed, and so was I. But then, just as we were leaving the terza loggia, by pure chance, we ran into a monsignor, an old friend, and exchanged greetings.

Then I said, 'Well, Christopher and Will have to leave for the airport... and we were planning to try to see the Sistine Chapel, but we don't have time...'

The monsignor looked at his watch. 'How much time do you have?' he asked. 'About 20 minutes,' I said. 'Well,' he said, 'we could try to go through the palace itself. I'll take you.'

And so we headed down a stairway, and through splendid marble rooms, to the back door of the Sistine Chapel. He knocked on the door, and the door opened a crack, and he spoke to the guard inside, and we were let in, and stood beneath Michelangelo's ceiling, and the finger of God stretching out to touch the finger of Adam.

'The beginning of things... and the end,' I told the boys, indicating the fresco of the Last Judgment. 'And what follows that end, has not yet been written about. But it will be as much more real than this world we now experience, as this world is more real than the nothing out of which it was created...'

Then it was time to go.

We had entered at the Porta Sant'Anna, but now we had to leave by the Scala Regia and the Bronze Doors. As we walked down the broad stairway, we came to a Swiss Guard. I asked him if we could go for a moment into the Basilica, and see the Pieta. He said yes..

So we went down into the Basilica, and were there alone, not a single other person in sight, and stood in front of the Pieta.

'This is the only work Michelangelo ever signed.' I said. 'It sums up the sorrow of all sorrows, the sorrow a mother feels at the loss of her son. And yet, she is serene...'

In the silence, I said a prayer for their safe travel. And then we had to leave, and it was down to the Bronze Doors, and out to the left by a back way, and past the Vatican bank down to the Sant'Anna gate, and out to the Square to find a taxi to take us to Fiumicino, and the airplane that would carry them to the East... (continued at bottom)

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On June 16, Pope Benedict XVI named U.S. Dominican Father J. Augustine DiNoia an archbishop and secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.

'I am happy the Pope has entrusted to me an area that he considers so important,' the archbishop-designate told Catholic News Service shortly after the Vatican announced his new assignment.

'I think the liturgy should give us a sense of the heavenly liturgy; it's about God, not us,' he said.

Archbishop-designate DiNoia, 65, has served as undersecretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 2002.

His episcopal ordination will be July 11 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington; U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the doctrinal congregation, will preside at the liturgy, he said.

At the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, Archbishop-designate DiNoia succeeds Sri Lankan Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, who was named archbishop of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Archbishop Ranjith, a former nuncio, had served as the congregation secretary since 2005.

One of the major tasks facing the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments is overseeing the final approval and use of a new English translation of the Mass. It was widely believed the Pope would choose another native English-speaker as secretary of the congregation after he appointed Spanish Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera to be congregation prefect last December.

Born July 10, 1943, Di Noia was ordained a priest June 4, 1970.

The complete CNS news story can be found here: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0902744.htm

Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com

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