Universae Ecclesiae, citing Benedict XVI's letter to the bishops on the occasion of the publication of Summorum Pontificum, mentioned that "New saints and certain of the new prefaces can and ought to be inserted into the 1962 Missal, according to provisions which will be indicated subsequently." However, UE didn't mention that a commission to effect this was already established last year.
VATICAN CITY, September 19, 2011 – "The activity of the Holy See" is a hefty volume that gives a year-by-year account of the actions of the pope and the Roman curia. It is an "unofficial publication," as specified on the frontispiece, but in spite of this it contains not a little information, sometimes rather unusual, that cannot be found in other Vatican sources.
To verify this it is enough to leaf through the latest edition, on the activities of 2010, which has just been printed by Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1343 pp., 80.00 euro).
In it we learn, for example:
- that last year the disciplinary office of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith opened 643 procedures, 82 percent of which concern "delicta graviora" (which include the sexual abuse of minors by clergy), 8 percent "offenses against the faith," 3 percent "cases of apparitions," and 7 percent other matters of various kinds.
- that during the same period, the congregation for divine worship and the discipline of the sacraments dealt with several hundred cases regarding requests for papal dispensations in order to remarry after a marriage "ratified but not consummated." A dispensation that was granted in 301 cases, and withheld in 2.
- that the congregation for the evangelization of peoples gave, through the pontifical society for the propagation of the faith (whose charitable fund, however, has been "significantly" reduced because of the economic recession), more than 85 million dollars in assistance to dioceses in mission territory. More than 30 million was distributed through the pontifical society of St. Peter the Apostle. And more than 19 million through the pontifical society of missionary childhood.
- that the Roman Rota, whose jurisprudence is a model for all the ecclesiastical tribunals in the world, during the judicial year of 2010 issued 175 definitive verdicts on the nullity of marriage, the majority of them (93 versus 82) in favor of nullity.
- that the pontifical council for legislative texts, at the direction of the pope, set up four study groups in view of a possible revision of parts of the code of canon law, on questions of penal law, procedural law, marriage and family law, and the relationships between the code of the Latin Church and that of the Eastern Churches.
- that a joint commission was set up, with experts of the commission "Ecclesia Dei" and of the congregation for divine worship, for the "updating" of the commemorations of the saints and the "possible insertion of new prefaces" into the preconciliar Roman missal of 1962, to which Benedict XVI gave full citizenship in 2007.
- that the office of papal charities, in response to almost seven thousand letters from individuals and families requesting help, provided "with discretion" and "on a day-by-day basis," in the name of the pope, a sum "close to one million euro." A sum entirely covered by the contributions received for parchments with apostolic blessings requested by the faithful: 115,500 parchments issued directly by the office of papal charities, and 112,00 distributed through almost eighty partner organizations.
