The Future of The Inauguration Ceremony
While the rituals used for the inaugurations of Popes John Paul I and John Paul II were provisional ad hoc rites, the one used for Pope Benedict XVI was not. Under Pope John Paul II, the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff prepared a draft version of a permanent rite, to be submitted for revision and eventual approval as a definitive ordo by John Paul II's successor. Pope Benedict approved this new rite on 20 April 2005. It was then 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 Beginning of the Petrine Ministry of the Bishop of Rome). This new ordo is intended to be a permanent version of the rite of inauguration and, in a press conference held shortly before Pope Benedict's inauguration, Archbishop Piero Marini, the Papal Master of Ceremonies, described it as part of the application to papal rites of the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council. Of course, any new Pope would have full authority to alter this inauguration rite, if, for instance, he decided to include a coronation ceremony.
The Ordo Rituum pro Ministerii Petrini Initio Romae Episcopi thus approved in 2005 contains not only the rite of the Mass of the Inauguration, but also that of the Mass of the Enthronement of the new Pope on the Cathedra Romana, the chair of the Bishop of Rome, in the Lateran Basilica, Rome's cathedral and the Roman Catholic Church's primary Basilica, outranking even the Vatican Basilica. Popes usually take possession of the Lateran Basilica within a few days of the inauguration of the pontificate. Pope Benedict XVI did so on 7 May 2005. This rite, known in Latin as the incathedratio, is the last ceremony marking the accession of a new Supreme Pontiff.
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