"Behold the Council: the Pope at the pinnacle, and, around him and with him, the cardinals, the bishops of all rites and of all nations, the most competent doctors and masters of the most diverse degrees of specialization."
Pope Blessed John XXIII, Apostolic Letter "Le Voci che da Tutti".
Perusing an old issue of the discontinued marvel which was the French journal "Itinéraires", I believe I found the answer to a riddle proposed by the folks at the Cornell Society.
After the Pope's remarkable homily of December 8, one of the most beautiful pieces of Marian devotion written in the past 50 years (I spoke of it here and here), there were doubts regarding this passage:
Indelibly printed in my memory is the moment when, hearing his [Paul VI's] words: "Mariam Sanctissimam declaramus Matrem Ecclesiae" - "We declare Mary the Most Holy Mother of the Church", the Fathers spontaneously rose at once and paid homage to the Mother of God, to our Mother, to the Mother of the Church, with a standing ovation.
The philosopher Romano Amerio, the most precise analyst of the Church in the 20th century, had a quite different recollection, as registered in Iota Unum:
"the Holy Father proceeded to make the solemn proclamation in his speech closing the third session of the Council on 21 November 1964, and was received in silence by an assembly usually quick to applaud".
The contemporary editorial of Itinéraires (1965, vol. 1, p. 50) describes the scene:
"Along with the [new conciliar] texts, there are and there will be, little by little, certain precisions, even anedoctal, and of the Conciliar Fathers standing for the proclamation of Mary Mother of the Church, and those who did not stand up, and those who ended up standing up."
If there is a video somewhere of this exact moment, it would be interesting to see who rose and who did not. It seems clear both the Pope and Amerio are right: there was great enthusiasm from some, and great disappointment from others (the clique of Lady-haters whose influence was so great throughout the Council), as well as a considerable amount of latecomers...
