Fulgens corona
Fulgens corona ("Radiant Crown") is an encyclical by Pope Pius XII, given at St. Peter's, Rome, on 8 September 1953, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the fifteenth year of his Pontificate. The encyclical proclaims a Marian year for 1954, to commemorate the centenary of the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.
Fulgens corona is significant as it contained the mariological methodology of Pope Pius XII and his views on limits and challenges of mariology.
First Marian year
In September 1953, Pope Pius XII inaugurated the Roman Catholic Church's First Marian Year, or "Little Holy Year," devoted to the Virgin Mary who had always been the object of his special veneration. He announced the Marian Year in his encyclical letter Fulgens corona.[1] The Marian year, the first in Church history, ran from December 1953 to December 1954,[2] Hundreds of thousands of Romans lined the route of the papal cortege when Pius XII, in one of his rare appearances in the streets of Rome, went to the Basilica of St. Mary Major to open the Marian Year on 8 December 1953, the 99th anniversary of the proclaiming of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary by Pope Pius IX.
Pius XII begins by recalling his predecessor, Pope Pius IX, who with "apostolic authority defined, pronounced and solemnly sanctioned "that the doctrine, which holds that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary at the first moment of her conception was, by singular grace and privilege of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the Human race, preserved from all stains of original sin, is revealed by God, and therefore to be firmly and resolutely believed by all the faithful." (Dogmatic bull Ineffabilis Deus, of Dec. 8, 1854.)"[3]
The celebration also acknowledged the 1950 declaration of the
Basic teachings
The Pope stated that the
Pope Pius XII invited all Catholics to celebrate the Marian Year to be held the whole world over from the month of December 1953 until the same month of the coming year, and urged them to be mindful "that she repeats to each of us those words, with which she addressed the servers at the wedding feast of Cana, pointing as it were to Jesus Christ: "Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye" (John. 2. 5)[9]
He further noted that in many places, Catholic clergy are "banished, or thrown into prison without just cause, or else are so harassed that they are unable to carry out their duties properly... in those same places they are not allowed to have their own schools and training colleges, that they cannot publicly teach, defend or propagate Christian doctrine in periodicals or commentaries, and cannot properly train the youth in accordance with the same doctrine."[10] He asks for worldwide special prayers, that the sacred rights which are proper to the Church, and which the very exercise of human and civil liberty demands, may be openly and sincerely recognized by all.[11]
Quote
"And so these two very singular privileges, bestowed upon the Virgin Mother of God, stand out in most splendid light as the beginning and as the end of her earthly journey; for the greatest possible glorification of her virgin body is the complement, at once appropriate and marvelous, of the absolute innocence of her soul, which was free from all stain; and just as she took part in the struggle of her only-begotten Son with the wicked serpent of Hell, so also she shared in His glorious triumph over sin and its sad consequences."[12]
See also
- Catholicism portal
- Ad Caeli Reginam
- Marian papal encyclicals and Apostolic Letters
Pope Pius XII, Mariological encyclicals and bulls
- Acta Apostolicae Sedis. (AAS), Vatican City 1939-1958. Official documents of the Pontificate of Pope Pius XII, Fulgens corona 1953, 577
References
- ^ ""Fulgens Corona", The Tablet, October 3, 1953". Archived from the original on October 18, 2016. Retrieved October 16, 2016.
- ^ Koo, Samuel. "Marian Year Called Return to Tradition", The Washington Post, February 21, 1987
- ^ Pope Pius XII, Fulgens corona, September 8, 1953, §1, Libreria Editrice Vaticana
- ^ AAS, 42: 754
- ISBN 9780802827333
- ^ “Fulgens Corona". The Furrow, vol. 4, no. 11, 1953, pp. 662–664. JSTOR
- ^ Fulgens corona, §10.
- ^ Fulgens corona, §15.
- ^ Fulgens corona, §24.
- ^ Fulgens corona, §41.
- ^ Fulgens corona, §42.
- ^ Fulgens corona, §21.
Bibliography
- "Fulgens corona". Pius XII Encyclicals. Libreria Editrice Vaticana.