Show your love for your German shepherd

A family-owned printing business in Springfield, Mass., one of whose members is a regular reader at Bettnet, is printing and selling bumper stickers with a picture of Pope Benedict and the slogan “I love my German Shepherd.” You can order them through their web site. You can only order them online at that site.

Here’s a little blurb about the company:

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Bassette Printers is a 107-year-old printing company (employing about 60 people) in Springfield, MA.  My brother Kevin is the owner (and the third generation of our family to run the place.  My grandfather started here in 1905 as a 14-year-old Irish Catholic orphan living on the streetr the new pallium, as you can see in picture, hangs off-center and is longer than the one that has been used since the 14th century or so.

Patrick notes that the new “old” pallium was not the idea of Pope Benedict, as some have suggested, but was actually planned for use by Archbishop Piero Marini, the much maligned Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations. In a 2003 document called “Liturgy and Beauty”, on “renewal in certain papal liturgical celebrations,” he noted that the Office of Papal Liturgical Celebrations “intends to introduce a modification of the pallium which takes into consideration both its earliest forms and its mediaeval symbolism, in order to express more clearly the ecclesiological and christological significance of this insignia, which was of great importance in antiquity.” He also notes that the traditional Ring of the Fisherman would be reinstated and that both of these would happen at the inauguration of the new Pope.

As Patrick says, it will interesting to see if the pallia conferred upon archbishops on June 29, the traditional date for the ceremony, will also take this new “old” form.

  I haven’t read the whole document, but it might be interesting to read, especially if Marini stays on in his capacity. Marini has received a lot of criticism for allowing all kinds of oddities to creep into papal Masses, like half-naked native dancers and such. My guess is that Pope Benedict, known for his concern for a reform of the reform of the Liturgy, will want to put his own man in there.