Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Via Col Vento in Filadelfia

By now, it's safe to say that the Pontifical North American College has assembled in exile here in the River City.

Benvenuti, hope you all had a safe trip, enjoy your stay in the Empire -- but, please, please, no sing-alongs around the piano... some things are best left back on the Hill.

To keep our canonist crowd occupied in advance of tomorrow's ordination, a daylong seminar for JCDs and JCLs is being held today at St Charles Borromeo Seminary in conjunction with the canon law faculty of the Pontifical Gregorian University.

That'll end by 5.30, of course, so the reverend revellers from near and far can make the Holy Hour at the chapel of the Cathedral-Basilica of Ss. Peter and Paul.

As tomorrow's ordination is, for all intents and purposes, invite-only, and considering the principle that bishops are ordained for the whole church (i.e. the people of God), you'd think that an evening vigil service before an invite-only event would be opened to a wider swath of the faithful than can make tomorrow's afternoon liturgy.

Well, if you'd think that, you obviously don't know how we operate. It's clergy-only, so as tempted as I'd be to show, to pray, to greet and to observe, I know our long black line well enough to realize that the sight of but one tie in a sea of collars would encite a fair amount of boos, hissing and catcalls from the assembled... and maybe the hurling of an object or two. So I'll be doing some house-cleaning instead, and the prayers and gathering will have to wait.

It's just another day in Pharaohville.

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