Inside baseball: Pope St. Paul VI’s cathedral in his home town has no altar!

Something there is that makes a fellow love it.

The newer of the two [Brescia] Cathedrals intrigues. Within it, a ‘shrine’ to S Paul VI ‘Brixiensis’ [the Brescia native]. It contains, apparently, neither relics of the Saint nor an altar.

Speculation arose in our group [of insiders, attending a convention] about whether this latter fact was a piece of subtle symbolism indicating his desire to abolish the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. [Paul had approved the new, post-Vatican 2 mass, which traditionalists abhor.]

I [Fr. Hunwicke, as insider] strongly disagreed, arguing that his condemnation of ‘Transignification‘ [denial of the orthodox-traditional transubstantiation] showed that at least his heart, or part of it, was in the right place.

And the evidence ([Louis] Bouyer [who had told his friend Paul VI of Annibal Bugnini’s duplicity] inter alios [among others]) indicates that the the worst excesses of ‘his’ [Paul’s] rite can be blamed on Hannibal’s deceptions.

I like it for various reasons. One is how it contains so much in so few references — if you know what he’s talking about. And if you didn’t before I explained it, now you do. Maybe.