Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Priests' Problems & Mass on the Hindenburg. Also Corpus Christi Pictures.

I mentioned previously that I enjoy flicking through volumes containing the questions and answers published in clerical magazines in the first half of the last century. Whilst to our eyes it may seem slightly ridiculous that the clergy of an earlier generation got so worked up about what seem to be minor issues (Is it allowed for the room above an oratory in a rectory to be used as a bedroom?), but I am not infrequently of the mind that today's clergy don't care enough about details (major and minor) in matters of liturgy, canon law and morality. An attention to detail, if not taken to extremes, normally betrays a genuine concern and diligence in these matters.
Anyway, my latest discovery is a 1958 volume entitled
PRIESTS' PROBLEMS
Being answers to a large variety of questions on points of moral, canonical, liturgical and rubrical interest
by the late
CANON E.J. MAHONEY, D.D.
Selected and edited by
REV. L.L. McREAVY, J.C.D., M.A
Amongst the gems in this book is the question: Would a priest enjoying a portable altar indult, which included celebration in a ship, violate any grave law by celebrating Mass in an aeroplane? In the course of the answer we discover: There is no express prohibition against celebrating in aeroplanes. On the contrary, it was expressly permitted by papal indult as long ago as 1936, on the voyage of the dirigible Hindenburg from Friedrichschafen to New York, and the celebrant Fr. Schulte O.M.I., is said to have been the first priest to celebrate in the air..
One presumes that last clause excludes St. Joseph of Cupertino.
Now availible on the Vatican website are the pictures from the Pope's Corpus Christi procession. If you look closely you might see Zadok in this shot. :)

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