The Return of the Veronica to Rome

Paul Badde is interviewed by Catholic News Agency about the upcoming Pilgrimage Procession of the Holy Face.  The interview is in German many browsers will translate it to english or other language.

Catholic News Agency Interview with Paul Badde January 14, 2016


Here are some excerpts of the interview as translated by my browser:

CNA: But is it not a contradiction if the image now comes in a copy to Rome and not as the original?

BADDE: No, on the contrary, it seems that this process is somehow particularly useful. Because in its time in Rome the then so-called veil of Veronica was in a sense the mother of all canonical images of Christ. In addition at St. Petersburg in Russia at that time there was a guild, which was only concerned with the production of image copies of this canonical image which then also served as image- documents of the incredible story of a true image of Christ in the world.Especially in Europe all these icons have always retold the wonders that God has shown in Jesus' face. That Christians really know precisely what God looks like. Only we know the "human face of God", of which Pope Benedict XVI repeatedly spoke. That is why today it comes from the incomparable original in Manoppello.   Although only a copy returns to Rome, but - it was manufactured according to the best technical possibilities of our time - as was done in the 13th century.

CNA: You are one of the world's leading experts on the sudarium. Many have written books on the archetype. Manoppello attracts more and more pilgrims.  The Internet is teeming with articles and statements. No one can say anymore that the veil picture is still unknown.What difference does  this little procession make?

BADDE: Now the knowledge of the image comes to the public no longer from books by various authors or from lectures and essays and polemics and debates of professors and nuns. But now it comes down to it in a liturgical way back into the heart of the universal Church, in a large church. And that's probably the most beautiful way that can be imagined for it. And that is completely new - that it is carried in this most peaceful manner without any dispute up to St. Peter's Basilica itself, where it had been kept in custody as a treasure.

photo by James Reynolds

CNA: Do you know how this program will look like in detail?

BADDE: Yes, on Saturday, January 16, 2016 the Holy Face is introduced by the group of pilgrims from Manoppello around 3pm with other  normal pilgrims  through the Holy Door in St. Peter's Basilica - and almost exactly at the place where It was stored in the old Constantinian basilica. That was in the former St. Mary's Chapel, where Michelangelo's Pietà stands today, at the front right of the basilica. From there the procession then goes back out onto St. Peter's Square and next to the Manger, where the whole group will form with the full choir of Manoppello, to carry it from there through the streets of the Holy Spirit to the Church of Santo Spirito.

CNA: Why is the church called Santo Spirito?

BADDE: Because in the Middle Ages all the hospitals were named after the Holy Spirit, then all the works of mercy were allocated as a matter of course.

CNA: And what happens then?

BADDE: Then solemnly carried into the reliquary in the church, which has been previously decorated already with red and white flowers such as for a wedding, the blood-red light of the Passion and the resurrection, which appear in the delicate image. But also because on this Sunday as in 1208 the Gospel of the Wedding at Cana will be read again. How it will then go on, is still somewhat uncertain. Because the beautiful church is usually very crowded, since John Paul II  in 1986 already made the church a center of DIVINA Misericordia, the "Divine Mercy", with special devotion of Sister Faustina Kowalska, with her relics and the famous picture of Christ which has been painted by her from her vision - recently along with relics of Saint John Paul and a statue of Our Lady of Fatima. Therefore, it is not difficult to recognize it as a sign of divine providence, that the true image of Christ will be taken here in the year of Mercy, where it picks up those threads again, which was spun here so long ago.

taken from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnadenbild_vom_Barmherzigen_Jesus

CNA: Is there any competition between the images?

BADDE: If there were Monsignor Jozef Bart Polish rector of Santo Spirito, would not have immediately welcomed the offer of the Capuchin Father Carmine Cucinelli, the rector of the Basilica in Manoppello. Particularly Polish pilgrims love both images. And years ago the Trappist Blandina Paschalis Schlömer and researchers from Poland and Germany have found in a so-called superimposition that the face on the cloth of Manoppello is almost identical with the original from the image of the Merciful Jesus, hanging in Vilnius today There is only one true face of God. It is the face of Jesus.

CNA: And then?

BADDE: Then the veil picture is welcomed in the evening, the vigil of the Sunday Omnis Terra, by a Solemn Pontifical Mass in Santo Spirito at 6:30pm celebrated by Archbishop Georg Gänswein along with many priests.  The Archbishop already accompanied Pope Benedict XVI to Manoppello in September, 2006. After  this high Mass, it is to remain at the main altar for 24 hours for worship. On Sunday evening of 17 January, there will then be celebrated at the same hour once again  a second solemn Pontifical Mass by Archbishop Edmond Farhat, who was born in Lebanon and has served the Church in many countries as Apostolic Nuncio, most recently in Vienna. 

CNA: since this historic event dates back to whose initiative, as you call it? From the Pope?

BADDE: No. Significantly, but not from any other office in the Church, not even by the organizers of the year of mercy or the new evangelization, but from Daisy Neves, a Filipino lady from Bellevue, Washington, from the periphery and the far west of the U. SA .. Two years ago, she generously invited Fr. Carmine Cuccinelli with a similar replica of the Volto Santo to the Philippines. In September also to Canada, Los Angeles and into the slums of Manila. She is nothing more than a passionate lover of the Divine Face, who wants nothing more than that this miraculous image of God is again assigned a place of honor in every church on earth.

CNA: Why is the picture so important?

BADDE: Because it simply exists, totally inexplicably. And because it just now - in the midst of a huge Revolution of images - re-enters history to speak in the midst of all the noise in a very new and very comforting and immensely quiet way about the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.

CNA: What does it tells us yet?

BADDE: that God has not become a book, but a human being. In this man we look at truth in the face. And in this face we learn everything there is to know about mercy. Or, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI of 6 September 2006: "If we really want to see the face of God, we must do nothing other than to contemplate the face of Jesus in his face we really see who God is and what God is like!"    

To see more of the Holy Face  https://picasaweb.google.com/116545434054082300035/HolyFaceOfManoppello