In Memory of Mons. Angelo Amodeo: Video of an Ambrosian Pontifical Mass

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the death of Monsignor Angelo Amodeo, a canon of the cathedral of Milan who dedicated much of his life to preserving the traditional Ambrosian liturgy, and the use of traditional Ambrosian chant within the post-Conciliar rite. Several writers of NLM, as well as our good friends of the Schola Sainte Cécile, had the honor of participating in liturgies celebrated by him, and he is very much missed.

Ambrosian Solemn Mass celebrated by Mons. Amodeo in the Pantheon in Rome on Sunday, May 2nd, 2010, sung by the Schola Sainte Cécile. Note the cappino, a type of collar which is attached to the upper part of the chasuble, dalmatic and tunicle, and also the fact that the deacon’s stole is worn over the dalmatic. Also note that at the elevation, the deacon lifts the chasuble so that it is parallel to the floor; the subdeacon incenses the Sacrament, since he does not hold the paten under a humeral veil as in the Roman solemn Mass. (Photos originally by John Sonnen of Orbis Catholicus.)

Monsignor remained a strong singer all of his life, and celebrated Mass in a way that showed how thoroughly he loved and lived the liturgy; he was always dignified, but completely natural, and precise, but completely graceful. He tended to begin his sermons rather slowly, and in what seemed at first a rather disjointed fashion, but I soon learned that he would always bring the seemingly disparate threads of his discourse together into something that was not just theologically useful to hear, but genuinely beautiful.

We are very pleased to share this video of a Mass which he celebrated in 2008 for his jubilee of priestly ordination (sensu largo), a Pontifical Mass ad instar abbatum. This privilege was granted to all canons of the cathedral of Milan when celebrating within the territory of the archdiocese, by a brief of Pope Clement XI, June 15, 1716, following the same privilege granted to abbots by Pope Alexander VII via an instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Rites on Sept. 27, 1659. (Privileges of this kind were not particularly rare back in the day; certain classes of the higher officials in the Roman Curia had the same privilege everywhere outside the diocese of Rome, and many cathedral chapters had the use of the miter, etc.) The Mass is a votive Mass of Ss Peter and Paul; the church is that of an old abbey in a town called Meda, about 15 miles north of Milan.