Papal Ceremonial of Yesteryear

The New Liturgical Movement has a post today with two pieces of archive film from 1961 of a Cardinal’s Requiem in St Peter’s and of Pope John XXIII and senior figures in the hierarchy attending meetings in the Vatican.

The post can be seen at The Funeral of Cardinal Tardini, 1961

Looking at the two short films one is transported to a world that now, less than sixty years later, seems as remote as Rome before 1870 or before the 1790s or indeed of the age of St Philip Neri. In that sense it is deeply moving and sad that so much had been lost or abandoned in so short a time of the heritage of the Church, of the Holy See, and for no appreciable gain.