Benedict XVI Commemorated in Manoppello to coincide with the ancient
rite of Omnis Terra
By Antonio Bini
On the
occasion of the re-enactment of the rite of Omnis Terra, named from the words
of the Latin text of Psalm 65: Omnis terra adoret te, Deus (Let the whole
earth adore you) Pope Benedict XVI was commemorated at the
Shrine of the Holy Face of Manoppello.
Antonio Gentili, rector of the Shrine, recalled the origins of the ancient rite, inspired by the event established by Pope Innocent III in 1208, on the second Sunday following the Epiphany, when the Veronica from St. Peter's was carried in procession to the sick being care for in the nearby pilgrims' hospital of Santo Spirito in Sassia. That event, as Fr. Anthony underscored, is historically remembered as the beginning of the public worship of the sacred image. He then recalled that the tradition was resumed in 2016, on the occasion of the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, with a pilgrimage from Manoppello to Rome during which a reproduction of the Holy Face was carried in procession . In the following years the tradition of the rite was renewed in Manoppello, thus becoming the third annual feast of the Holy Face.
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| Poster of the Association of Our Lady of the Holy Face announcing the Feast of Omnis Terra Commemorating Pope Benedict XVI |
The rector then emphasized that the celebration
intended to remember Pope Benedict XVI, recently deceased, who was a pilgrim to
the Holy Face on September 1, 2006, the first Pope to visit this Shrine. Fr.
Antonio highlighted that the television images and photos of that visit - which had returned to
light in recent days - showed the pontiff deeply moved in meditation for a long
time in prayer before the sacred image, and then as the pope encouraged the religious and the
faithful in the search for the face of Christ.
Fr. Antonio concluded with the invitation to pray for Benedict XVI,
thanking him for what he gave to the Church and to the Shrine.
In his homily, Archbishop Bruno Forte drew an appropriate link between Pope Innocent III, initiator of the cult of the Holy Face, and
Benedict XVI, as the pontiff who "brought back" to the Church the forgotten
sacred image, after centuries of oblivion and silence.
The archbishop, with an emotional voice, affirmed how the
gaze of the dying pope rested on the reproduction of the Holy Face, as the
pontiff gave a last invocation: "Lord, I love you."
From another testimony, published on the website of the
German-speaking Catholic press agency Kath.net on January 2, 2023, we know that
biographer Michael Hesemann visited Benedict XVI one last time on December 1,
2022, finding him weak, but mentally alert. Hesemann himself says that the pope
had near him, on a small table, the reproduction of the Holy Face of
Manoppello. It is likely that he had several, including the one, kept between two panes of glass in a silver frame, received as a gift from the Capuchins on
September 1, 2006.
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| Photo courtesy of Paul Badde |
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| Photo courtesy of Paul Badde |
Archbishop Bruno Forte recalled, not without emotion,
that visit, taking up and commenting on some passages of the prayer that the
Pope dedicated to the Holy Face, relating them to sections of the discourse that the Holy Father gave on the occasion of his apostolic journey to Germany, to
Freiburg im Breisgau, on September 24, 2011, during a prayer
vigil with young people.
It was Archbishop Bruno Forte himself who welcomed
Benedict XVI to Manoppello in 2006.
The pope's encounter with the Holy Face was very special. As he arrived at the Shrine, on a bright summer day, he was welcomed by thousands of
people who filled every possible space near the Shrine of the Holy Face. The
pope was visibly moved, without hiding his joy at being there, avoiding the
attempts of those who tried to dissuade him from a trip to this place where no
pope had ever gone before.
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| Pope Benedict with Archbishop Forte at the left and Fr. Cucinelli to the right |
As soon as he arrived in the church plaza, he addressed a brief greeting to those present, and then entered the church which was crowded with bishops, Capuchins and priests. He paused in prayer on his knees before the altar. Then accompanied by Fr. Carmine Cucinelli, then rector of the Shrine and the archbishop of Chieti-Vasto Bruno Forte, the pontiff climbed the stairs behind the main altar leading to the other side of the Holy Face, and remained there for several minutes in deep recollection, staring intensely with shining eyes at the Holy Face, whispering, according to some, "... The Face of God".
Precisely
these long and emotional moments of prayer represented the most significant
moment of the visit. During his address to those present, carried on giant screens to those outside the church, the Pope avoided expressing any official pronouncement on the
nature of the veil, stressing however that he was in a place "where we can
meditate on the mystery of divine love by contemplating the icon of the Holy
Face". Following this he addressed an invitation to religious: "Dear priests, if the holiness of his
Face remains impressed on you, pastors of Christ's flock, do not be afraid, the faithful entrusted to your care will also be infected with it and
transformed". He also urged the seminarians present not to be attracted by
anything other than Jesus and the desire to serve His Church. At the exit of
the church, he addressed a last greeting to the enthusiastic crowd that awaited
him, renewing the encouragement, addressed above all to the many young people
"to seek the Face of Christ" concluding his visit, exclaiming with
joy: "It is good to be with the Lord."
Individual
pilgrims and groups from various parts had reached the Shrine only on foot starting the
night before, as security needs had led to traffic being blocked several kilometers
away.
That day I was also in Manoppello. Indeed I was there since the previous night, as Fr. Carmine, then rector of the Shrine, asked me to help him in the organizational phase of that extraordinary event that had no precedent for the town and for the Capuchins themselves, and also to set up a stage for journalists and television reporters and transformed the adjacent San Damiano hall into a press room.
That
night we slept very little waiting for the next morning, between prayers and
songs of groups of young people and new arrivals, including foreign journalists. The
next morning, the arrival of the pontiff by helicopter, who landed in the
nearby parking lot for the short walk to the Shrine, in the company of
Archbishop Bruno Forte, of Mons. Georg Gänswein,
Mons. James Harvey Prefect of the Apostolic Palace. Their passage was surrounded
by the joy of the crowd that crowded near the barriers, moving Benedict XVI
himself.
Already
in February 2006, the hypothesis of a visit by Benedict XVI had leaked to some
newspapers. The news caused a sensation, but was immediately denied by Mons.
Bruno Forte, archbishop of the diocese of Chieti-Vasto, including the Shrine of
the Holy Face. A circumstance that was to reveal little-known back stage maneuverings, or
rather attempts made by members of the Vatican hierarchy to advise against that visit by citing possible consequences.
The
announcement did not fail to generate expectations and hopes among the
Capuchins themselves, who discreetly put their organizational machine into
practice, preparing for the
expected event. Only on August 19, 2006, the Vatican Press Office issued a
simple notice confirming that the "pilgrimage of His Holiness Benedict XVI
to the Shrine of the Holy Face in Manoppello" would be held on September
1. In short, a private pilgrimage and not a true and proper visit, which reaffirmed the
pope's desire to meet the Holy Face.
In
fact, at the beginning of 2005 it was Mons. Forte to have invited the then
cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to Manoppello, from whom he had received episcopal
ordination on September 8, 2004 in Naples, before assuming the leadership of
the diocese of Chieti-Vasto. In a recent interview with the newspaper "Avvenire" on January 6, 2023, Forte confirmed that
the date of April 18, 2005, had already been set, but owing to the fact that two days before the appointed day the
cardinal was elected pope the appointment could not be kept. But it was only
postponed.
In the
autumn of 2004 it was the journalist and writer Paul Badde who informed the
future pope, living at that time close to the Vatican in the very same apartment building as Badde, of the
research he was conducting on the Holy Face, and gave the cardinal a copy of his first book
on the Holy Face published in Germany (Das Muschelseindentuch, Ullstein,
Berlin).
Heinrich Pfeiffer, the authoritative scholar of the image of Christ, after presenting his theses on Veronica at a conference with the foreign press in Rome on May 31, 1999,delivered a memorandum to Cardinal Ratzinger hoping for a visit by Pope John Paul II. In those same years, Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini had also informed the Polish pope of the results of the research by Fr. Pfeiffer, professor of Christian art history at the Gregorian University of Rome and scientific consultant of the International Research Institute on the Face of Christ, created in 1997 by Cardinal Angelini himself, precisely in view of the great Jubilee of the Year 2000.
The
visit was a great international media event, as documented by the booklet in
which I collected the main comments expressed by the reporting which appeared
on television, in newspapers and magazines, or was disseminated by press agencies. The Capuchins of the shrine wanted to publish this booklet as a supplement to their magazine
Il Volto Santo di Manoppello.
It
seems appropriate to me to point out some of these comments in order to
understand what happened in the years that followed and also to grasp the meaning
of the papal pilgrimage that raised questions among the many journalists and
commentators. For example, Jerry O'Connell, in the British newspaper The
Universe, wondered "how a visit accompanied by over 300 journalists could
be considered private". Paul Kreiner in "Der Tagesspiegel" also
recalled the irony with which the pope himself spoke of the "private"
character of his visit.
Saverio
Gaeta is quite explicit in his article "This is the Face that we will see
again", published in the weekly Famiglia Cristiana, n. 37/2006, p. 57. For
the most widely circulated Catholic weekly in Italy, with unusual frankness, he
wrote that "his coming, despite the objections raised by some leaders of
the Vatican Curia regarding the appropriateness of such a trip (for fear that
in fact it would contradict what has been claimed for centuries by the Vatican
Chapter, which has always claimed to possess the original), makes legitimate
the idea that the Pontiff is convinced of the authenticity of this image."
Paul Badde, in the newspapers Die Welt and Berliner Morgen Post, also dwelt
"on the resistance of the Vatican hierarchy" that characterized
Benedict XVI's trip to Abruzzo. Others also spoke of a"detective story". Circumstances that can also give an idea of the
difficulties that have characterized Benedict's pontificate.
The popular German newspaper Bild, in an article by Andreas English, wrote "the pope prays before the Holy Face, elevating the image to the most important relic of Catholics." Joachim Fischer in the Frankfurter Allgmeine Zeitung recalled the Gospel of John which speaks of the cloth that covered the face of Jesus (sudarium) as well as the burial cloths, also claiming that "more than his prudent words, the Pope impressed by remaining in silent devotion before the Icon". From this behavior the journalist notes the possibility of historical changes in the sense that "for the Catholic Church the period in which it distanced itself from images is over." Guido Horst, in the German newspaper Die Tagespost, argued that the pope "with not a word expressed the thesis that the veil of Manoppello is what in the tomb was on the Face of Jesus." The BBC and Reuters also spoke specifically of visiting the Veronica. Others recalled the studies of Sister Blandina Paschalis Schlòmer regarding the overlapping of the Holy Face with the Shroud.
With respect to a variety of comments and questions in the press around the world, I recall that L'Osservatore Romano dedicated its front page to the papal visit, with the complete text of Benedict XVI's words delivered at the Shrine on an internal page, without further comment. After almost 150 years of history, the Vatican newspaper was still and all taking an interest in the Shrine of Abruzzo for the very first time.
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The
meaning of the visit must also be understood in the light of the cordial
meeting with the most famous scholars of the Holy Face, which took place inside
the Friary, during a break in the visit, as documented by the images that show
the pontiff with Fr. Heinrich Pfeiffer, Paul Badde, Sr. Blandina, Fr. Andreas Resch and
Saverio Gaeta, all convinced supporters of the authenticity of the veil and its
identification with the Veronica (true icon).
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| Pope Benedict with Paul Badde. In the middle Archbishop Forte, Fr. Resch and Fr. Pfeiffer To the right Sr. Blandina |
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| Sr. Blandina greeting Pope Benedict |
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| Fr. Pfeiffer greeting Pope Benedict. Archbishop Forte looks on |
Fr. Pfeiffer, in his article which appeared in the special edition of the Shrine's magazine dedicated to the
visit, published by the Capuchins, argued that it was important that the pope,
"well beyond any type of pressuring" had seen with his own eyes "the image of
Christ who was venerated over the centuries as the most important relic of
Christianity. Perhaps it would never have been known to the general public if
the now deceased Fr. Domenico da Cese had not wanted to exhibit it during the
Eucharistic Congress held in Pescara", alluding to the exhibition on the
Holy Face that the Capuchin, deeply convinced of the authenticity of the image,
wanted to organize on the occasion of that event (September 1977), during which Pope Paul VI was present.
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| Padre Domenico and the Holy Face |
Pfeiffer,
the first to support after years of research the identification of Veronica with the veil of Manoppello took the opportunity to admit "that he never wanted
to create difficulties for the Canons of St. Peter's, but it is known that one
of them exhibits on the eve of Passion Sunday, what is a copy that replaced the
true relic". In previous years, a lively debate regarding the Veronica's
disappearance also ended up on the pages of the monthly 30 Days, between the
German Jesuit and Mons. Dario Rezza, canon of Saint Peter's Basilica. We also know that two
canons of St. Peter's went to Manoppello in the early years of the new
millennium and, while venerating the sacred image, verbally recommended to Fr.
Germano Di Pietro, then rector, to avoid talking about the Veronica, of which they had also begun to write about in the magazine of the Shrine. For a long time the
Capuchins had been afraid to do so.
Pfeiffer,
who died on November 15, 2021, suffered greatly from the consequences of his
studies, which he tenaciously continued to carry out. After the pope's visit to
Manoppello, he wrote that "every research is a debtor to only one thing: the
truth." And Benedict's presence in Manoppello should also be understood as a
response to his studies.
In
reality, from that visit, immediate effects emerged, such as the Shrine's elevation to the status of basilica only three weeks after the visit. The granting of the title was
intended to "intensify the attachment and devotion of the chair of St.
Peter to this important church and at the same time make it the center of
particular liturgical and pastoral action."
One
year after the pilgrimage, the Pope sent to the Shrine, through the bishop, the
prayer dedicated to the Holy Face, the text of which expresses a long
reflection directed to the "human face of God who entered history to
reveal the horizons of eternity. Silent face of Jesus suffering and risen
..". A true and proper testimony
that came from the theologian pope, who has shaped his entire religious and
academic life on the dialogue between faith and reason, between science and
faith.
The
consequences of the encounter with the Holy Face emerged from other voices,
such as that of Alessandra Borghese, a Roman noblewoman very close to Vatican
circles, who published an article in the newspaper Il Resto del Carlino on
December 20, 2007 – entitled "The Mystery of the Holy Face" – in which
she wrote that some friends had heard that the pope was deeply moved by that sacred image.
Even the centuries-old silence on Veronica began to fade. In a statement from the Holy See Press Office of July 14, 2011, coinciding with the presentation of the exhibition "The Man, the Face, the Mystery," to be held in San Marino, with works from the Vatican museums, it became known that Veronica had disappeared in 1527. A thesis confirmed by Antonio Paolucci, then director of the Vatican museums, in an interview with the newspaper Il Resto del Carlino on August 18, again about the San Marino exhibition. But these belated admissions, although relevant, seemed to produce little reaction, persisting towards the "rediscovered Face " an attitude of little attention.
Other
signs and events followed in this direction in the following years, also after
the resignation of Benedict XVI (February 28, 2013), which he followed by
almost a decade of secluded silence, until his death.
Among
these signs and events, it is worth remembering how, coinciding with
the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, instituted by Pope Francis in 2016, the
idea of resuming the ancient tradition established by Pope Innocent III took
shape.
On
January 16, 2016, a pilgrimage of 400 people, led by Fr. Carmine Cucinelli,
with the reproduction of the Holy Face, enclosed in an ancient silver
reliquary, traveled from Manoppello to converge on St. Peter's Square. The
procession was able to enter St. Peter's under the statue of Mochi and then in
procession, led by the choir, headed to the nearby basilica of Santo Spirito in
Sassia, packed to the hilt. The Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Mons. Gänswein, prefect of the Papal Household and, above all, Benedict
XVI's trusted secretary, who had already accompanied the pope to Manoppello. see https://holyfaceofmanoppello.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-veronica-at-st-peters-today-toward.html and https://holyfaceofmanoppello.blogspot.com/2016/01/archbishop-georg-gansweins-homily-at.html
In the
course of the homily he clearly stated that it was "a copy of the ancient
original that Pope Innocent III showed to pilgrims and that for four hundred
years has been kept in Abruzzo, on the Adriatic, in an outlying area of Italy,
from where today for the first time it has been brought back to the place where
its public worship began." Among the concelebrants were two canons of St.
Peter's, Lebanese Archbishop Edmond Y.
Farhat and Mons. Americo Ciani.
Since then the ancient rite is repeated each year in Manoppello and ends with a short procession in front of the church plaza. On January 17, 2021, Mons. Gänswein returned to preside over the celebration, reiterating, among other things, that "On the first of September 2006 Pope Benedict brought back to the Church and throughout the earth the 'face of God' human and personal". He added the reference to when on May 15, 2009, "Benedict visited the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, from which both the veil of the Holy Face and the Turin Shroud come as an incomparable message of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead." Relevant statements, which can be traced back to the thought of the pope, and of course to that of Mons. Gänswein and that make us think back to the humble prophecy of Fr. Domenico da Cese, who came to the same conclusions in the 1970's, courageously expressing them in the notes that accompanied a holy card that reproduced the Holy Face. see https://holyfaceofmanoppello.blogspot.com/2021/01/homily-of-archbishop-george-ganswein-at.html
In the book "Nothing but the truth" (ed. Piemme, Milan, 2023), written by Mons. Gänswein, with the collaboration of the journalist Saverio Gaeta, there are references to the Holy Face. The book, released a few days after the death of Benedict XVI, is causing an uproar for some details that emerged especially during the period following the resignation, which perhaps would have required greater confidentiality, while understanding the human desire to clarify some episodes, after almost ten years of silence, also to protect the memory of the deceased pope.
The book represents, in any case, an
opportunity to learn more about the vision of the recently deceased pope. It is argued, among other things, that for
pope Ratzinger at the base of the trilogy "Jesus of Nazareth," there
was the conviction of Jesus' saving message, "which is not simply a
doctrine, but the concrete encounter with his person, with the God who truly
became man and who continues to be present in every age." In this regard,
Mons. Georg recalls the words that the pope pronounced in Manoppello before the
Holy Face: "To see God we must know Christ...". In addition, the
invitation of Mons. Forte, to the then Cardinal Ratzinger, to whom he donated a
copy of the book on the Holy Face, edited by Saverio Gaeta, printed by Famiglia
Cristiana in March 2005. In the appendix of Mons. Georg's book, the papal
testament is published, written on August 29, 2006, that is, while he was preparing
for his pilgrimage to the Holy Face, of which he knew everything (even beyond
the books that had been given to him), including his spiritual legacy: "Remain firm in the
faith! Don't let yourself be confounded!... Jesus Christ is truly the way, the truth, and the
life—and the Church, with all her shortcomings, is truly His body."
The
papacy of Benedict XVI will be discussed at length, as well as his resignation,
which seemed inspired by the gesture made in 1294 by Celestine V, on whose
mortal remains kept in the Basilica of Collemaggio in L'Aquila he went to pray in the days following the earthquake that struck Abruzzo on April 6,
2009 and again, on a pastoral visit to Sulmona on July 4, 2010. But to have
brought back to the Church the gaze on the face of Christ will remain an act
historically attributable to his pontificate.
(all photos except as noted courtesy of Antonio Bini)
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