Paul Badde's Talk for the Conference held at the Shrine of the Holy Face of Manoppello August 3, 2024.

 

Fr. Heinrich Pfeiffer, S.J. during the Omnis Terra Procession January 2017
 (Photo by Antonio Bini)

"THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE!"

by Paul Badde

Some reflections on the 25th anniversary of the identification of the Holy Face with the Roman Veronica by Fr. Heinrich Pfeiffer S.J.

"The Jubilee of 2025 will probably be the Jubilee of the Holy Face", said Father Germano Franco di Pietro OFM Cap. in the magazine 'L'Arena' of Verona on November 22, 2000. How did the sober rector of the Basilica of the Holy Face in Manoppello come to this conclusion? What happened?

A year earlier, on May 31, 1999, the German professor and Jesuit priest Heinrich Pfeiffer had announced, in a press conference at the Foreign Press Office in Rome, on the initiative of Antonio Bini, the revolutionary hypothesis that the Holy Face of Manoppello was really the veil of the image that for centuries, until 1999, had been called "Veronica" in St. Peter's in the Vatican. The wealth of arguments in favor of his argument was convincing and overwhelming.

In a documentary about the event, however, I see today that 7 English, 18 German and 68 Italian newspapers reported on the press conference at the time, as well as a French magazine and two Spanish and two Polish newspapers. Five agencies, the world broadcaster BBC and television networks of Spain, Holland, Uruguay, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Mexico also spoke about it.

But I also realize that none of the colleagues I knew went to Manoppello at the time to verify with their own eyes the bold hypothesis of Father Pfeiffer. I myself was still living in Munich in 1999 and in Jerusalem in 2000 and had heard nothing of the whole affair, even though I had to follow the press closely every day at the time.

The Vatican remained very cautious about the whole affair. It coldly rejected Father Pfeiffer's hypothesis in an essay by Dario Rezzi, canon of St. Peter's Basilica, in the magazine "30 Days" and granted a certain Roberto Falcinelli generous access to the relic of the Roman Veronica, only to have him spread the news in another essay in an anthology that the veil painted in Manoppello is the work of Albrecht Dürer. How did this come about and how should it be understood?

The reasons are fundamentally varied.

First, in 1999 the Roman Veronica had a 791-year history of well-documented veneration behind her, which began in 1208, when Pope Innocent first personally and publicly carried the veil from St. Peter's Basilica to the nearby Hospital of Santo Spirito in Sassia.

Secondly, on April 18, 1506, Pope Julius II laid the cornerstone of the new - current - St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican right under the so-called Pillar of Veronica. This is one of the four pillars that support the dome of St. Peter's and was designed by the architect Bramante from the beginning as a security safe for the veil of Veronica. This veil of the "Sanctissimum Sudarium" with the "human face of God" (Benedict XVI) was in some way conceived as the foundation of the largest and most important church in Christianity.

Thirdly, however, a term coined by the great Catholic theorist and philosopher of communication Marshall McLuhan in 1964 comes to our aid, when in the first chapter of his book "Understanding Media, The Extensions of Man" he categorically stated: "The medium is the message".

What did he mean?

First, perhaps, this: packaging is what makes a gift a gift, my wife says!

Here are three examples:

I am almost certain that the Eucharistic monstrance originates from the frame that was once used to carry the Holy Face through Rome. In fact, how could one think of creating an elaborate frame for an image between two crystal discs that could be seen from two sides and that would show us an "image" of the treasured God? I just can't imagine that this idea was possible without the model with which the Holy Face was first carried around Rome. But unlike the original frame of the Holy Face, the monstrance needed an elaborate and precious halo of rays, each of which seemed to say above the small white host in the center: "Behold, it is the Lord!" THIS IS THE MEDIUM, which here is, so to speak, the message itself: it is the Lord!

The same goes for the entire Column of Veronica by architect Bramante in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. You won't find a more precious safe anywhere in the world. Overall, this is a grand monstrance for the so-called Veil of Veronica! And that's not all: it also has its bells in the column and its liturgy for the time when the veil is displayed once a year.

And that's not all. Unlike the original frame of the Holy Face with two transparent crystal plates, which can still be admired today in the Treasury of St. Peter's, the Vatican's "Veronica" was suddenly presented to the faithful in this Veronica Column by Pope Urban VIII (1623 - 1644) through a completely different means (i.e. the medium). It was an extremely precious and heavy frame, which was to emphasize the immeasurable value of the relic with gold and silver and the most precious stones. It had only one flaw compared to the original old frame. It was no longer transparent, because suddenly the new relic was no longer transparent either. However, the whole mounting should make every pilgrim think: It is the Lord who shows himself here!

All this is perhaps surpassed only by the Cathedral of Orvieto, which makes the entire Umbrian city a unique monstrance among all the wonderful Italian cities. This basilica, with its wonderful chapel of the treasure, was built entirely for the corporal of nearby Bolsena, on which blood dripped in 1264 when a certain Father Peter of Prague doubted the presence of Christ in the host transformed during Holy Mass! Later and from then on the Cathedral of Orvieto and with it the entire city were built as a single MEDIUM for this corporal, as already mentioned, as a large monstrance.

Even so, the corporal originates from the liturgical cloths of the altar and was once called a sudarium. It is in fact the cloth that is separated from all the other cloths of the altar after coming into contact with the transformed host (that is, with Corpus Christi), just as the real sudarium came into contact with the face of the Lord on which it had been placed at the time of his burial.

And if we now compare this cathedral of Orvieto with the Basilica of the Holy Face of Manoppello, where the real Sudarium is venerated, we see something different, which we can also study in the magnificent church of San Camillo di Lellis in nearby Bucchianico. It is the oldest Baroque church in Abruzzo, which since its foundation has attracted pilgrims to venerate the saint, although he himself is not even buried here, but in Rome in the church of Santa Maria Maddalena, behind Piazza Navona. In Bucchianico, therefore, only this splendid "means" has remembered the saint for centuries, while in nearby Manoppello the human face of the God has been mostly hidden in the simple church of Saint Michael of the Capuchins and where even today these centuries of continuous and appropriate veneration of the most precious relic of Christianity are lacking!

But unlike all these examples, in Manoppello the medium is not the message. In the Holy Face, the message speaks to us as "the human face of God among men" even without the beautiful, freshly cleaned frame. Perhaps the prophetic Rector Germano was right in the year 2000 just a little wrong about the year, and that only the Holy Year 2050 will be the true jubilee of the Holy Face. Because this face in the Holy Sudarium shows not only the way and the life - but also the truth. But the truth is not in a hurry. The truth can certainly wait.