Solemni Hac Liturgia - 40th Anniversary

With this weekend, on which we celebrate the martyrdom of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and which inaugurates a Pauline year, celebrating the 2000th anniversary of his birth, I would like to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the publication of a great work of orthodoxy and defense of the Catholic faith by His Holiness Pope Paul VI, may he rest in peace.

On June 30, 1968, Pope Paul celebrated the closing solemn liturgy of the nineteenth centenary of the martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul. At this liturgy, the Holy Father gave a Catholic exposition of the profession of faith, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. Although he made it clear it was not "strictly speaking a dogmatic definition" (n. 3), nonetheless he called it a "true confession" (n. 7) modeled after that of the apostle Peter at Caesarea Philippi, speaking "beyond human opinions" (ibid.); he would be giving "a firm witness to the divine Truth entrusted to the Church to be announced to all nations" (ibid.), and that this "profession of faith" would be "to a high degree complete and explicit." (ibid.)

This exposition on the Creed came to be known as "The Credo of the People of God" (Confessio Populi Dei, if my Latin is not mistaken). Earlier this year, I learned from Fr. John Zuhlsdorf's blog "What Does the Prayer Really Say?" that this document was, in fact, authored by the Pope's philosopher-friend Jacques Maritain.

I strongly encourage everyone to read this document. It provides the Catholic perspective on the Creed. I would reproduce it below with my emphases added, except that I would end up emphasizing nearly every sentence! That is how concise and thorough this profession has been presented. It is an astonishing defense of the Catholic faith in the midst of a tumultuous time of turmoil, explained to a T.

Faith: Pope Paul VI on the Nicene Creed

Wow. Add this Apostolic Letter of Pope Paul VI -- Solemni Hac Liturgia -- to the list of documents from the era around Vatican II that people have just plum overlooked! (Another document on that list is Pope Bl. John XXIII's Veterum Sapientia, about the importance of the Latin language in the Church and the education thereof.)

It is an aggiornamento (bringing up-to-date) of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed... in a good way. His Holiness expounds on the elements of the Creed, reinforcing the Catholic faith in a time of "disquiet which agitates certain modern quarters with regard to the faith", "in which so many certainties are being disputed". Without being "strictly speaking a dogmatic definition", it is a bold re-affirmation of so many elements of the Catholic faith.

This document should be required reading in every RCIA session around the world!

The Pope speaks of the Trinity and its Persons, Mary the Mother of God (specifically her perpetual virginity, Immaculate Conception, Assumption, and universal Motherhood), original sin, being reborn in the Holy Spirit, baptism, the Church of Jesus Christ founded on Peter and its four marks, the Word (in Scripture, Tradition, and Authority), the single Shepherd of the Church, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass being the sacramental presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary, the transubtantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the temporal concern of the Church, purgatory, the communion of saints, and the Resurrection.

Blessed be God Thrice Holy. Amen.