Sunday, October 16

 

Semi-Guilty Papal Pleasures


I found these lyrics on a schismatic website I don't plan on linking to, but in spite of its juridical status its authors have found a hymn which is even more wonderfully, bombastically over-the-top Ultramontane than Shrine fave Long Live the Pope (sung once during daily mass during my tenure at Notre Dame, and several times by giddy Catholic nerds en route to class or elsewhere, and possibly as a drinking song), though I doubt the tune's as catchy:

Full in the panting heart of Rome
Beneath the apostle's crowning dome.
From pilgrim's lips that kiss the ground,
Breathes in all tongues one only sound:

Refrain. God bless our Pope, God bless our Pope
God bless our Pope, the great, the good!

The golden roof, the marble walls,
The Vatican's majestic halls,
The note redoubles, till it fills
With echoes sweet the seven hills:

Refrain. God bless our Pope, God bless our Pope
God bless our Pope, the great, the good!

Then surging through each hallowed gate,
Where martyrs glory, in peace await
It sweeps beyond the solemn plain,
Peals over Alps, across the main.

Refrain. God bless our Pope, God bless our Pope
God bless our Pope, the great, the good!

From torrid south to frozen north,
The wave harmonious stretches forth,
Yet strikes no chord more true to Rome's,
Than rings within our hearts and homes.

Refrain. God bless our Pope, God bless our Pope
God bless our Pope, the great, the good!


~Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman, Archbishop of Westminster (1802-1865)

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