Category: Catholic Devotions

Article at Catholic World Report asks: Could the pope suppress the rosary?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • October 18, 2021 • Catholic Church; Catholic Devotions; papacy

 

What if the pope sup­pressed what-if ques­tions? But this one is easy, or should be: Of course the pope could sup­press the Rosary. The ques­tion here is not would the he sup­press it, or should he sup­press it, but only could he. And of course the pope has the pow­er to sup­press a devo­tion. An obvi­ous exam­ple of this is when, in 1959, John XXIII sup­pressed devo­tion to the Divine Mer­cy. (John Paul II lat­er lift­ed the sup­pres­sion, in 1978.) This kind of thing hap­pens all the time. Now, the Rosary is so beloved, so tra­di­tion­al, so root­ed and fixed in Catholic devo­tion­al prac­tice that the chances of any such thing hap­pen­ing are all but zero; but there’s no rea­son the pope couldn’t do it.

Read more

Why we should pray the Luminous Mysteries.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • July 12, 2016 • Catholic Devotions

 

On Octo­ber 16, 2002, Pope St. John Paul II added a new group of Mys­ter­ies — the “Lumi­nous Mys­ter­ies” — to the Rosary. Hith­er­to there had been three groups: the Joy­ful Mys­ter­ies, the Sor­row­ful Mys­ter­ies, and the Glo­ri­ous Mys­ter­ies. These three togeth­er totaled 150 Hail Marys: orig­i­nal­ly meant to cor­re­spond to the 150 Psalms. An objec­tion, among tra­di­tion­al-mind­ed folks, to a new set of mys­ter­ies was that it would under­mine this con­nec­tion. John Ven­nari imag­ined the objec­tions for­mer popes may have had, as though he spoke for the dead.

Read more