HIS PHOTOGRAPH shows the (dead) Archbishop José Ignacio Checa y Barba, on his throne wearing full pontifical vestments:
We have mentioned abstruse rubrics in the past:
* Revealed! • A Fascinating Mass Rubric Very Few Know
—Published on 7 September 2019.
…but there is another ceremony involving wine.
For pontifical Masses in the Extraordinary Form, there’s a rubric allowing an altar server to “taste” the wine to make sure it’s not poisoned. The archbishop of Quito’s murder was the last (documented) case of poisoning a bishop during the liturgy. He was 47 years old.
UITO IS THE CAPITAL of Ecuador. José Ignacio Checa y Barba was the Archbishop of Quito. Together with the president of Ecuador, they were the first in the world to devote their country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Archbishop Checa y Barba—in the past—had tended to remain aloof from all quarrels with the government, but things changed in 1877. On March 10, the archbishop issued a pastoral warning the faithful against heretical publications, and this angered the government, which protested on 12 March. Checa y Barba answered in a note of March 17, in which he “refused to give to Caesar what did not belong to Caesar.” A visit from Veintemilla on March 24 failed to change the archbishop’s mind.
On Good Friday (March 30) after consuming the SACRED HOST during the Mass of the Presanctified, the archbishop took some wine to purify the chalice. At the time, he remarked to the deacon on its bitter taste. He completed the services, but died amid horrible convulsions as soon as he returned to his palace. The autopsy revealed that he had been poisoned by strychnine. No one was ever punished for the crime.
Source: Polish Website
