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The Holy Face of Manoppello, pictured in this January 2019 photo, is said to be a cloth laid on Jesus' face after his death. (CNS)
Tom Burke
Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, while in Rome to visit with local priests studying and serving there, celebrated Mass on Jan. 20, feast of Omnis Terra (for the whole world), at the Shrine of the Holy Face of Manoppello. The archbishop was invited to the shrine by rector, Capuchin Father Carmine Cucinelli. The Holy Face of Manoppello is said to be a cloth laid on Jesus face after his death.
“The Holy Face of Manoppello has been cared for by the Capuchin Franciscan Friars in Manoppello at least since the 1600s,” Ray Frost, retired sacristan of St. Ignatius Church who has visited the shrine on multiple occasions with his wife Liany, told Catholic San Francisco. Pope Benedict XVI made a pilgrimage to the shrine and named it a basilica in 2006.
“I wasn't able to go to Manoppello to be there when the archbishop was there,” Frost said. “I have been intrigued by this special image of the face of Jesus since 2002 when I read a book review in an Italian journal which spoke about it. For me it is a great privilege to have seen the Holy Face.”
Frost said “the veil almost seems like a screen on which a multitude of faces of Jesus are projected. There is a special presence of Jesus in the veil. It is a living image in some sense. There's nothing like it in the world.”
It can be said that Manoppello is on the way from Rome to San Giovanni Rotondo where Capuchin St. Padre Pio spent most of his life and is buried. St. Padre Pio called the Holy Face of Manoppello "the greatest treasure we have.”
In September 2014 Father Cucinelli came to the U.S. and the Bay Area to promote knowledge and devotion to the Holy Face. On Nov. 11, 2017, a replica of the Holy Face of Manoppello, blessed by Father Carmine, was enthroned in a special ceremony above the tabernacle at St. Francis of Assisi Church in East Palo Alto.
“The Holy Face continues to be there for the people,” Father Larry Goode, St. Francis pastor, said. “It is really a part of the prayer life of the parish.”
Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, Cardinal Gerhard Muller, left, and Archbishop Bruno Forte, with the monstrance of the Holy Face at the Shrine of the Holy Face of Manoppello following Mass and procession commemorating the feast of Omnis Terra (“for the whole world”) Jan. 20. (Photo by Antonio Bini)