Wanderer contributor Scott Richert commented on the significance of the date, October 20, that the apostolic constitution was announced in his column for the About. com Guide to Catholicism, and Pope Benedict’s penchant for linking important acts with important feast days.
The Holy See’s announcement came on the Feast of St. Paul of the Cross, the Italian founder of the Passionists who devoted his life to the conversion of England.
“Though St. Paul spent his life in Italy,” Richert wrote, “The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that ‘for fifty years he prayed for the conversion of England, and left the devotion as a legacy to his [spiritual] sons.” Almost 65 years after his death, the Passionists were first introduced into England, and The Catholic Encyclopedia declares that ‘ They came in the spirit of Apostles without gold or silver, without scrip or staff or shoes or two coats,’ yet they ‘soon revived without commotion several Catholic customs and practices which had died out since the Reformation. They were the first to adopt strict community life, to wear their habit in public, to give missions and retreats to the people, and to hold public religious processions’.
. . . “All of this may simply be a coincidence. But considering Pope Benedict’s sensitivity to the symbolism of dates, I don’t think so. In any case, on this historic day, we can join St. Paul of the Cross in praying for the conversion of England.”
[Source - http://www.thewandererpress.com/ee/wandererpress/index.php ]
