Vatican City, Feb 25, 2019 / 11:06 am (CNA).- The Vatican announced Sunday that Pope Francis will publish in March a post-synodal exhortation on last October’s synod on young people, faith, and vocational discernment.
The papal document, for which a title has not yet been announced, will be released March 25 during a papal trip to Loreto, Italy, the location of the Shrine of the Holy House of Loreto, where Pope Francis will present the document to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Loreto is a small town in north-eastern Italy, which since the end of the 13th century has been host to a building which tradition holds is the home where the Virgin Mary was born, raised, and greeted by the Angel Gabriel. The building is said to have been brought to Loreto by angels.
According to new norms promulgated last September to govern synods, the publication of a post-synodal papal document is not required to make a synod’s conclusions authoritative, though such documents have traditionally followed synodal sessions.
According to the new norms, Francis could have chosen to consider the final document of the synod assembly, as part of the Church’s ordinary magisterium if he gave it a particular level of papal approval.
Instead the Vatican has announced Francis will follow the Synod of Bishops on young people, held Oct. 3-28, 2018, with an apostolic exhortation.
The last post-synodal apostolic exhortation to be written was Amoris laetitia, which followed the 2014 and 2015 synods on the family.
The pope’s day-trip March 25 will include a stop at the John Paul II youth center in a town near by Loreto and a visit to the Loreto Basilica, where he will celebrate Mass inside the Holy House.
After Mass, Francis will sign the post-synodal exhortation before greeting the local community of Capuchins and the sick and infirm. He will give a short speech and lead the Angelus before departing for Rome after lunch.
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Vatican City, Jul 5, 2018 / 04:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After the Vatican’s former communications head stepped down in the fallout of a major fake-news scandal, Pope Francis has tapped layman Paolo Ruffini for the job, pulling him from a post with the Italian bishops conference.
Ruffini, born in Palermo in 1956, has until now worked as the director of TV2000, the official television channel for the Italian bishops, and will be responsible for continuing the pope’s overhaul of Vatican communications.
He graduated with a law degree from Rome’s Sapienza University, and has been a professional journalist since 1979. He has been married for roughly 32 years and has worked for various publications, including “Il Mattino” of Naples; “Il Messaggero” in Rome; the radio and television sections for Italian broadcaster “Rai,” among others.
In addition to his hefty background in radio, print and television communications, Ruffini has also received several prizes for journalism and has participated in study conferences about the role Christians play in information, communications ethics and new media.
The July 5 announcement of Ruffini’s appointment comes after the recent decision by Pope Francis to change the Vatican’s communications office from a “secretariat” to a “dicastery,” the general word used for the Vatican’s various offices and departments, which was seen by some as a downgrade.
Ruffini will take over for Msgr. Lucio Ruiz, who has served as an interim leader for the communications office since March, when the former prefect, Msgr. Dario Vigano, stepped down following what has been dubbed the “Lettergate” scandal.
The fiasco took place after the March launch of the 11-book series “The Theology of Pope Francis,” published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the Vatican publishing house overseen by the Vatican’s communications department.
A letter from Benedict XVI praising Francis’ theological and philosophical formation was read aloud at the event, however, the secretariat later admitted to tampering with an image of the letter that was sent to media, blurring out lines in which Benedict said that he had not read the full series, and did not plan to do so, and therefore was not able to offer an in-depth analysis of the text.
Days later, it was revealed that further paragraphs had been left out in which Benedict questioned the inclusion in the series of a theologian known for his “anti-papal initiatives.”
After receiving pressure from the media, the secretariat published the full letter March 17, which they said was confidential and never intended to be published in its entirety.
Following Vigano’s resignation, Pope Francis named Ruiz, former secretary of the department, as an interim prefect, but asked Vigano to stay on in an advisory role, which he is expected to keep when Ruffini steps in.
In a recent interview with Reuters news agency, Pope Francis said he had initially offered the job as his communications chief to a woman, but she had declined due to previous commitments.
Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica, where Bernini’s gorgeous bronze monument to the Chair of Peter acts as a massive
bronze reliquary for the historic wooden chair. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Nov 9, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
For the first time in over a century, the historic Chair of St. Peter, a wooden throne symbolizing the pope’s magisterial authority, has been removed from its gilded bronze reliquary in St. Peter’s Basilica to be displayed for public veneration.
Pilgrims and visitors can now behold this storied relic directly in front of the basilica’s main altar, just above the tomb of St. Peter, where it will remain on display until Dec. 8, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.
The last major public viewing of the chair occurred in 1867, when Pope Pius IX exposed the Chair of Peter for the veneration of the faithful for 12 days on the 1,800th anniversary of the martyrdoms of St. Peter and St. Paul, according to Pietro Zander, head of the Necropolis and Artistic Heritage Section of the Vatican.
It was the first time that the centuries-old wooden throne had been exhibited to the public since 1666 when it was first encased within Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s monumental bronze sculpture under the stained-glass Dove of the Holy Spirit window at the basilica’s apse.
The historic wooden Chair of St. Peter as it is currently on display in St. Peter’s Basilica. Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA
Formally known as the Cathedra Sancti Petri Apostoli, or more simply as Cathedra Petri, the chair has held a revered place in Catholic tradition over the centuries, representing papal authority from St. Peter to the present.
“The chair is meant to be understood as the teacher’s ‘cathedra,’” art historian Elizabeth Lev told CNA. “It symbolizes the pope’s duty to hand down the teaching of Christ from generation to generation.”
“It’s antiquity [ninth century] speaks to a papacy that has endured through the ages — from St. Peter who governed a church on the run trying to evangelize with the might of the Roman Empire trying to shut him down, to the establishment of the Catholic Church and its setting down of roots in the Eternal City, to our 266th successor of St. Peter, Pope Francis,” she explained.
Pope Francis venerates the Chair of St. Peter at the end of the closing Mass of the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 27, 2024, the first day the chair was displayed for public veneration. Credit: Vatican Media
A storied history
The wooden chair itself is steeped in history. According to the Vatican, the wooden seat was likely given by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Bald to Pope John VIII in A.D. 875 for the emperor’s Christmas coronation in the old St. Peter’s Basilica. A depiction of the emperor appears on the crossbeam of the chair, and its ivory panels illustrate the labors of Hercules along with other scenes from Greek mythology.
The informational sign near the chair in St. Peter’s Basilica informs visitors that “shortly after the year 1000, the Cathedra Petri began to be venerated as a relic of the seat used by the apostle Peter when he preached the Gospel first in Antioch and then in Rome.”
The Fabric of St. Peter, the organization responsible for the basilica’s upkeep, maintains that “it cannot be ruled out that this ninth-century imperial seat may have later incorporated the panel depicting the labors of Hercules, which perhaps originally belonged to an earlier and more ancient papal seat.”
Before returning the chair to its place within Bernini’s monumental reliquary, Vatican experts will conduct a series of diagnostic tests with the Vatican Museums’ Cabinet of Scientific Research. The ancient seat was last removed and studied from 1969 to 1974 under Pope Paul VI but was not shown to the public.
Closer details can be seen of the historic relic of the Chair of St. Peter. For the first time in over a century, the wooden throne symbolizing the pope’s magisterial authority has been removed from its gilded bronze reliquary in St. Peter’s Basilica to be displayed for public veneration. Credit: Daniel Ibanez
The recent restoration of Bernini’s works in the basilica, funded by the Knights of Columbus in preparation for the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year, made it possible for the chair to be moved from the bronze sculpture in August.
Pope Francis got a sneak peak of the relic in early October and a photo of the moment — showing him sitting in a wheelchair before the Chair of St. Peter — quickly went viral. Afterward, the pope requested that the relic be displayed for public veneration.
Francis ultimately decided that the Chair of St. Peter — a symbol of the Church’s unity under the instruction of Christ — would be unveiled for the public at the closing Mass for the Synod on Synodality.
“Pope Francis has been exceptionally generous to the faithful about displaying relics,” Lev said. “He brought out the bones of St. Peter shortly after his election, he had the Shroud of Turin on view in 2015, and now he has taken the Chair of Peter out for veneration in the basilica.”
“In our virtual age, where much confusion reigns between what is real and what is not, Pope Francis has encouraged us to come face to face with these ancient witnesses of our faith and our traditions.”
Pope Francis venerates the Chair of St. Peter at the end of the closing Mass of the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 27, 2024, in Rome. Credit: Vatican Media
Feast of the Chair of St. Peter
The Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, celebrated each year on Feb. 22, dates back to the fourth century. St. Jerome (A.D. 347–420) spoke of his respect for the “Chair of Peter,” writing in a letter: “I follow no leader save Christ, so I enter into communion with … the Chair of Peter, for this I know is the rock upon which the Church is built.”
As Pope Benedict XVI explained in a 2006 catechesis: “‘Cathedra’ literally means the established seat of the bishop, placed in the mother church of a diocese, which for this reason is known as a ‘cathedral.”
“It is the symbol of the bishop’s authority and in particular, of his ‘magisterium,’ that is, the evangelical teaching which, as a successor of the apostles, he is called to safeguard and to transmit to the Christian community,” he said.
When a bishop takes possession of the particular Church that has been entrusted to him, he sits on the cathedra, Benedict explained: “From this seat, as teacher and pastor, he will guide the journey of the faithful in faith, hope, and charity.”
“The Church’s first ‘seat’ was the upper room, and it is likely that a special place was reserved for Simon Peter in that room where Mary, mother of Jesus, also prayed with the disciples,” he added.
Benedict XVI described Peter’s ministry as a journey from Jerusalem to Antioch, where he served as bishop, and ultimately to Rome. He noted that the See of Rome, where Peter ultimately “ended his race at the service of the Gospel with martyrdom,” became recognized as the seat of his successors, with the cathedra representing the mission entrusted to Peter by Christ.
“So it is that the See of Rome, which had received the greatest of honors, also has the honor that Christ entrusted to Peter of being at the service of all the particular Churches for the edification and unity of the entire people of God,” he said.
The Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica, where Bernini’s bronze monument to the Chair of Peter acts as a massive bronze reliquary for the historic wooden chair. Credit: Vatican Media
Bernini’s Baroque masterpiece
Bernini’s monumental reliquary for the chair, commissioned by Pope Alexander VII and completed in 1666, is one of the most iconic artworks in St. Peter’s Basilica. Bernini encased the wooden relic within a bronze-gilded throne, dramatically raised and crowned by a stained-glass depiction of the Holy Spirit, symbolized as a dove, surrounded by sculpted angels.
The bronze throne is supported by massive statues of four doctors of the Church — two from the West, St. Augustine and St. Ambrose, and two from the East, St. John Chrysostom and St. Athanasius — symbolizing the unity of the Church through the ages, bringing together the teachings of both the Latin and Greek Church Fathers. And at the top of the throne, cherubs hold up a papal tiara and keys symbolizing papal authority.
On the chair itself, there are three gold bas-reliefs representing the Gospel episodes of the consignment of the keys (Matthew 16:19), “feed my sheep” (John 21:17), and the washing of the feet (John 13:1-17).
The ongoing restoration of Bernini’s monument at the Altar of the Chair, along with the recently finished restoration of the baldacchino, is significant not only in light of the 2025 Jubilee Year but also the upcoming 400th anniversary of the consecration of the current St. Peter’s Basilica in 2026.
“Celebrating the ‘Chair’ of Peter,” Benedict XVI said, “means attributing a strong spiritual significance to it and recognizing it as a privileged sign of the love of God, the eternal Good Shepherd, who wanted to gather his whole Church and lead her on the path of salvation.”
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