The Pope has confirmed Monsignor Guido Marini as Master of Pontifical Liturgical Ceremonies. Born 49 years ago in Genoa, Monsignor Guido Marini had been called to this position by Benedict XVI in October 2007.
Cordialiter mentions that the new Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy is a "Sirian" prelate (having been educated in the seminary of Genoa in the time of Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, who also ordained him a priest). Msgr. Piacenza (left) had been the Secretary of the same Congregation that he will now head. (It is unusual for a Secretary of a Vatican Congregation to be made its Prefect.)
Monsignor, first of all, welcome and good work...
"Thank you for the wishes, I truly need them. You know, I have been in Rome for a very short time, and I look around, I study, I reflect: there is so much to do and to toil, believe me."
So it goes from one Marini...to another: what do you say to Piero, your predecessor?
"I thank him from my heart. He gave so much to the Church, he served two Popes, and I find myself only at the beginning of my path."
You have been called to a difficult job...
"Certainly. The life of every head of liturgical ceremonies of the Holy Father is filled with problems. We are under the limelights, we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of making great mistakes."
Many have claimed that you were called because [you are] liturgically more traditionalist and sober than Archbishop Piero Marini. But what is your conception of the liturgy?
"[It is] as the Church wishes and teaches, not more and not less. I am not the kind of person who looks for inventions and oddities. I may even seem banal, but the liturgy is respect to the rules laid down by the Church, and I see no reason for which I should disobey it."
It is said precisely that in Genoa, where you worked up to now, the liturgy was well cared for, sober and elegant, without bizarre adornments...
"But liturgy is naturally thus. I repeat: no one can act against the liturgical laws of the Church. The Mass is a gift, a grace, not a show. Therefore, no invention, but absolute respect for liturgical rules."
Pope Benedict XVI, other than a great theologian, is also a fine liturgist. He attributes to the liturgy, [when] correctly executed, a notable relevance...
"Working together with the Holy Father will be a grace for me. The popularity of the Pontiff, his preaching of truth and courage, are before the eyes of all. Regarding the liturgy, I completely share the thesis of the Pope: the Mass is Sacrifice."
In your opinion, have there been liturgical abuses recently?
"You know, the Church is large. But, as the Pontiff himself recognized in the accompanying letter to the Motu Proprio 'Summorum Pontificum', there have been abuses and extravagant interpretations. What I can say is that certainly I will not be the author of any fabrication, I will limit myself to scrupulously apply the existing rules."
By the way, what do you think of the Motu Proprio which has liberalized the Mass in the Tridentine Rite?
I agree with the Motu Proprio 100%; [it is] an act of good sense, of justice, of freedom, and of foresight.
In the brief written note with which the new Master of Pontifical Ceremonies willed to express his own "sentiments", other than [expressing] "thanks" to the Pope for the selection and to Bagnasco "for the paternal affection with which he has followed my path this year and, especially, in the past few months", Marini also wished to convey a thought on the deceased Cardinal Giuseppe Siri: "I believe that he is also glad to see one of his priests, whom he received in Seminary, called to carry out this job, he who loved and promoted the liturgy so much."
[Cardinal Siri,] A prelate careful to all that the Tradition of the Church has handed over, even and especially in liturgical matters. So careful that there are those who say today that, if he were still alive, he would be, more than anyone else, glad with the liberalization of the ancient rite promoted by Ratzinger thanks to the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. A liberalization which monsignor Guido certainly sees with benevolence, if it be true - as it is true - that also thanks to his work as cerimoniere of Archbishops Tettamanzi and Bertone, and Bagnasco up to yesterday, the ancient Genoese liturgical school has shone again and has shown its beauty in the cathedral of San Lorenzo.
A splendor which originates from the work of monsignor Moglia, a man for whom the vision of the Bugninist school (to which belongs the now former papal cerimoniere Piero Marini), according to which Vatican II broke with the past also in liturgical matters, was something to be rejected because of its falsehood.
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In the Vatican, there is a small office expecting [don Guido]: three monsignors (Enrico Viganò, Giulio Viviani e Konrad Krajewski) and two addetti to the Papal Sacristy (Mario Mattei e Giuseppe Viscardi) who propably expected anything, except the nomination of a head of ceremonies from outside of their office.
Yet, Ratzinger has decided so. His will is to have a cerimoniere who is not a protagonist (never before as in the age of Piero Marini was a Papal cerimoniere so much spoken of) and who knows how to give to his ceremonies that sumptuosity mixed with sobriety which has not always been seen recently inside the Vatican walls.
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The current Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Genoa, Monsignor Guido Marini - who also is the Prefect of the ancient Cathedral of San Lorenzo and Archdiocesan Master of Ceremonies (Cerimoniere), as well as spiritual director of the Archdiocesan seminary and professor of Canon Law in several institutions -, has been named by several Italian journalists as the man who will replace Archbishop Piero Marini (no relation) as Master of Pontifical Liturgical Ceremonies.
Marco Tosatti in La Stampa and the publishers of Il Foglio affirm that the successor of Cardinal Ruini at the helm of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) will be (probably for Tosatti, certainly for Il Foglio) the new Archbishop of Genoa, Angelo Bagnasco, former Archbishop of the Italian Military Ordinariate and a "Bertonian". Il Foglio states that the change will probably be made public on March 7.
Precisions regarding [in merito] an eventual promulgation of a "Motu proprio" to ease the appliction of the indult on the use of the Missal called of Saint Pius V
November 27, 2006
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1) the Pope, due to his supreme authority, has the faculty to put in practice universally valid and binding juridical and pastoral acts;
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8) the Council of Trent did not intend to unify with an act of authority the existing rites of the Latin Church; in fact, based on the principle established by the same Saint Pius V -- who, at the request of the Council, effected the reform --, the churches and religious orders which had for at least two centuries their own rite of venerable tradition, could preserve it. With the passing of the years, in fact, the Roman Rite established itself, though not in an exclusive way; the case of the Ambrosian rite, spread through some valleys of the Ticino (called "Ambrosian Valleys") and the entire Archdiocese of Milan (though, even there, with exceptions: Monza, Trezzo, Treviglio) is symbolic [of that].
9) two valid expressions of the same Catholic faith -- that of Saint Pius V and that of Paul VI -- cannot be presented as "expressing opposite views" and, thus, as mutually irreconcilable;
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