Pope Paul IV (1555-1559) created the office of “Apostolic Preacher,” meaning someone designated to preach for the pope and senior Vatican officials. Since 1743, the office has been reserved to the Capuchins, and since 1980, it’s been held by the 72-year-old Cantalamessa, a scripture scholar by training whose last name in Italian means “sing the Mass.”
Though serving as Preacher of the Papal Household is certainly a privilege, it’s not really a full-time job. Cantalamessa is responsible for leading retreats for the pope and senior Vatican officials during Advent and Lent, as well as delivering the Good Friday homily in St. Peter’s Basilica. The rest of the time, Cantalamessa is, in effect, an itinerant preacher, moving around the globe in his simple brown Capuchin habit, clutching a tattered small blue copy of the New Jerusalem Bible.
His Feb. 21 appearance at Seton Hall University was in some ways a homecoming for the Cantalamessa. It was in New Jersey in 1967 that Cantalamessa was first “baptized in the Spirit,” a key term in Charismatic Christianity for a decisive moment in which someone accepts Jesus Christ in a deeply personal way. Since then, Cantalamessa has gone on to become arguably the most prominent adherent of the Charismatic movement in the Catholic Church.
Cantalamessa is not the stereotypical enthusiast associated with the Charismatic scene. He’s low-key, and just as likely to cite Thomas Aquinas as he is to quote hymns or to invoke wonders. Yet he’s deeply committed to seeing Christianity not in terms of formal adherence to a Creed, but as a deeply personal decision to “accept Jesus Christ” and to receive “baptism in the Spirit.”
“Maybe the Holy Spirit will touch somebody here,” he said at one point. “Maybe later tonight, maybe during Lent, but this could be a life-changing moment for someone here right now.”
Cantalamessa is such a drawing card that at a certain point last night, people turning out to hear him preach in the Seton Hall basketball gym had to be directed to park in a nearby synagogue and then bused to the location.
Cantalamessa candidly told the audience that early in his priesthood, he was “a strong adversary” of the Charismatic movement, so that his reversal of field in New Jersey came as a surprise to most of his Italian family and friends.
“When I got back to Italy, they told me, ‘We sent America Saul, and they have sent us back Paul,’” Cantalamessa joked.
He said that as part of his experience in New Jersey, God spoke to him through an “interior image.” He saw himself standing in a chariot, with the horses’ reins in his hands. He understood this, he said, to be a metaphor for his efforts to control his own life.
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