Papal inauguration

Referring in his inauguration homily to coronation with the papal tiara, John Paul II said: "This is not the time to return to a ceremony and an object considered, wrongly, to be a symbol of the temporal power of the Popes."

In his 1996 apostolic constitution Universi Dominici Gregis, John Paul II laid down that a "solemn ceremony of the inauguration of a pontificate" should take place, but did not specify its form, which he left to each pope to decide.

[6] The ceremony does not include the alleged Papal Oath that some traditionalist Catholics claim, without evidence, to have been sworn by the popes before John Paul I.

[7] The pallium used was different from that of previous popes: it was an earlier form practically identical to the ancient omophorion (still used to this day by Eastern bishops); wider than the standard archiepiscopal pallium, though not as wide as the modern omophorion; 2.4 metres (2.6 yards) long, made of wool with black silk tips.

After the pallium was bestowed and before the Ring of the Fisherman was presented, Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, as the senior cardinal-priest, pronounced the formal prayer for the new pope.

[7][8] After Mass, Pope Benedict greeted inside St. Peter's Basilica, before the main altar, various delegations present for his inauguration.

On 25 April 2005, the day after his inauguration at St. Peter's, he paid homage to the other founder of the church of Rome by visiting St. Paul Outside the Walls.

[10] Then the pope and the Eastern Catholic patriarchs and major-archbishops returned to the main floor of the basilica and processed along with the other cardinals, bishops and other clergy to the square chanting the Laudes Regiae.

[10][a][11][12] Angelo Sodano, Dean of the College of Cardinals, presented him with his Fisherman's Ring of gold-plated silver, unlike his predecessors', which were of gold.

On 20 April 2005, Pope Benedict XVI approved a permanent rite, a draft of which had been made by the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff under John Paul II.

This was published as an official liturgical book of the Church with the name Ordo Rituum pro Ministerii Petrini Initio Romae Episcopi (Order of the Rites for the Inauguration of the Petrine Ministry of the Bishop of Rome).