Daily Update: November 10, 2009

Oorah! Today we honor Saint Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor (died 461). Born in Tuscany, he was an influential deacon when unanimously elected by the people as Pope in 440. He strongly upheld the primacy of Rome over the other Bishoprics of Christendom and showed himself to be an uncompromising foe of heresy. When Attila invaded Italy in 452 and threatened Rome, it was Leo who, with two high civil functionaries, went to meet him, and effected his withdrawal. Unfortunately Leo’s intercession could not prevent the sack of the city by the Vandals in 455, but murder and arson were repressed by his influence. The significance of Leo’s pontificate lies in the fact of his assertion of the universal jurisdiction of the Roman bishop, which comes out in his letters, and still more in his ninety-six extant orations. This assertion is commonly referred to as the doctrine of Petrine supremacy. He is the earliest pope of the Roman Catholic Church to have received the title “the Great”, and it was for his writings that he was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1574. On this date in 1775 the Continental Congress during the American Revolutionary War formed the Continental Marines, with the first recruiting drive taking place at the Tun Tavern in Philadelphia; so this date is regarded as the Birthday of the United States Marine Corps. (Oorah!) Finally, today is the birthday of my good friend and Loyal Reader Dago in Mississippi, whom I have known since high school in Louisiana (1956).

The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould

I finished reading this book today (a good thing, as I have two other books that must be read before next Tuesday night), and very much enjoyed this not-quite-penultimate collection of essays that the author wrote for Natural History magazine on issues revolving around Evolution and Charles Darwin. Alas, Gould is no longer with us, but I treasure the essay collections, and enjoyed reading this one, as I have enjoyed reading the others in the series.

Daily Update: November 9, 2009

After several Saintless days (not counting Tom Dempsey), today we honor – a building. Today is the Feast of the Dedication of Saint John Lateran (Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano), which is the Cathedral of Rome and the official ecclesiastical seat of the Bishop of Rome, who is the Pope. The first basilica on the site was built in the fourth century when Constantine donated land he had received from the wealthy Lateran family. That structure and its successors suffered fire, earthquake and the ravages of war, but the Lateran remained the church where popes were consecrated until the popes returned from Avignon in the 14th century to find the church and the adjoining palace in ruins. Pope Innocent X commissioned the present structure in 1646. One of Rome’s most imposing churches, the Lateran’s towering facade is crowned with 15 colossal statues of Christ, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist and 12 doctors of the Church. Beneath its high altar rest the remains of the small wooden table on which tradition holds St. Peter himself celebrated Mass. Unlike the commemorations of other Roman churches (St. Mary Major, August 5; Sts. Peter and Paul, November 18), this anniversary is a feast. The dedication of a church is a feast for all its parishioners. In a sense, St. John Lateran is the parish church of all Catholics, because it is the pope’s cathedral; so this church is the spiritual home of the people who are the Church. Today is also the birthday of my first cousin Marianne (1962); I only have nine first cousins, so I try to keep connected with them via Christmas cards and the Internet.

Daily Update: November 8, 2009

Still no Saints to honor on this Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, so we turn to the New Orleans Saints (who are doing very well this year). In 1970 on this date, during their football game against the Detroit Lions, Tom Dempsey, a placekicker for the New Orleans Saints, kicked an NFL record 63-yard field goal in the final two seconds to give the New Orleans Saints a 19–17 win over the Lions. This record still stands as of the end of the 2008 regular season; it has been exceeded in the pre-season (which doesn’t count), and equalled by a kick at Mile High Stadium in 1998 (the 1970 kick was below sea level, at the old Tulane Stadium in New Orleans). Dempsey was born without toes on his right foot and wore a modified shoe with a flattened and enlarged toe surface. This generated controversy about whether such a shoe gave a player an unfair advantage as a kicker. In 1977, the NFL added a rule, informally known as the “Tom Dempsey Rule,” that “any shoe that is worn by a player with an artificial limb on his kicking leg must have a kicking surface that conforms to that of a normal kicking shoe.” The shoe is currently at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, where I made sure to take a picture of it when we were there on our trip in 2007.