Papal Rome

Last Sunday morning I watched online the Papal Inauguration Mass from the Vatican and this afternoon I watched the Pope take possession of his cathedral, the Archbasilica of St John Lateran, and celebrate Mass there.

Both celebrations were dignified examples of the Latin novus ordo and definitely suggest a concern for the way in which the liturgy is celebrated under the current dispensation.

In respect of the Inaugural Mass I would obviously prefer to see a Papal Coronation. I remember watching that of Pope Paul VI in 1963, which was only an edited down broadcast later that evening by the BBC, and I have cheerfully sat through the lengthy black-and-white video of the television coverage of the 1958 coronation of Pope John XXIII. I still recall my shock at the decision not to have a coronation by Pope John Paul I and genuine disappointment it was not revived by his two successors. 

If one had seen previous Papal Inaugurations before the taking possession of the Lateran was something I had not seen, and maybe it was not available beyond the occasional newspaper photograph or newsreels of the Papal blessing from the loggia in 1958. To watch this was more of a reminder of the antiquity of the Papacy than the liturgy last Sunday. This was taking place in the much rebuilt, yet still essentially the building dedicated in 324, the oldest continuously  used church in Latin Christendom, the residence and administrative centre of the Popes until 1304, the place whence, inter alia  Leo I, Gregory I, Gregory VII, Innocent III and Boniface VIII governed the church  and which is still the cathedral and possession of the Pope, 1701 years later

Wikipedia has a useful introduction to the history and architecture of the Lateran, as well as its full and resonant titles as the mother church of Christendom, at Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran