quinta-feira, 10 de setembro de 2009

Finalmente: il tornato of the sedia gestatoria...

AP photo from the Internet.
Rumors, yes, but common talk...
Finally, after thirty years it is coming back. And why?
The decision is said to be coming from the Secretary of
State, not from the Pope.
For one simple reason: "the children wish see the their Papa."
"He [Pope Paul] wanted to abolish the special chair which carried him on four [um, actually it was more than four] mens' shoulders, but no solution was found to allow the pilgrims to see the Pope easily."
-Paul VI by Archbishop Pasquale Macchi, p. 65.
Pope John Paul I was the last Pope to use the sedia gestatoria in September of 1978. Then came the young Pole who was fifty-eight years old and wished to mingle with the crowds - he was the outsider and did his best to meet everybody where they stood.
Needless to say, anybody who has ever stood in a crowd of thousands at any papal event knows how impossible it is to see the Pope, unless there be a sedia gestatoria.
fonte:orbis catholicvs