Cardinal Bagnasco, Italian Bishops' Conference chairman, in favor of Natural Marriage - Pope humiliates him

[Background: the Italian Parliament is about to approve the civil recognition of same-sex "couples". Only a few faithful bishops are supporting the millions of Catholics who are protesting it - led by the president of the Italian Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Bagnasco. Pope Francis does not like it.]

The Pope “cancels” Bagnasco, supporter of “Family Day”

by Carlo Tecce

Il Fatto Quotidiano

20th January 2016

Tomorrow [today] Francis will not meet the President of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) as planned. He was not pleased at being drawn into Italian political issues. Jorge Mario Bergoglio has eliminated Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco from his agenda of official meetings, so, [there will be] no audience tomorrow morning. The private meeting fixed a week ago by the permanent Episcopal Council, appeared and then disappeared from the internal “Bollettino - Prefettura della Casa Pontificia". The is the umpteenth episode and perhaps the most clamorous, which sanctions the distance between the Church of Francis and the Church of the Bishops presided over by Bagnasco himself.

Don Guido - V: "Siri is glad"

Avvenire, the semi-official daily of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), published yesterday a short profile of Don Guido Marini (PDF), new Master of Pontifical Liturgical Ceremonies, which included excerpts of Marini's own note on his nomination:

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."

Don Guido - IV

Paolo Luigi Rodari presents in Il Reformista a profile of the new Master of Pontifical Liturgical Ceremonies (excerpts, due to copyright limitations):

[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.
...
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.

...

Don Guido - III - Confirmed

1. Monsignor Guido Marini, new Master of Pontifical Liturgical Ceremonies.

2. Archbishop Piero Marini, new president of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses.

New Cardinals

Ignazio Ingrao, Vaticanist of Italian weekly Panorama, reported Friday in his Panorama blog that the list of new cardinals for the (almost certain) November consistory is ready and will be announced in the next few days.

The first name of the list would be that of Leonardo Sandri, new Prefect of Oriental Churches, followed by Angelo Comastri, Archpriest of Saint Peter's, Giovanni Lajolo, President of the Governatorate of Vatican City State, and Raffaele Farina, Librarian and Archivist of the Holy Roman Church; perhaps, Archbishop Foley, Grand Master of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. The Italians would be Angelo Bagnasco, of Genoa and President of the Italian Episcopal Conference ("probably", according to Ingrao; "certainly", according to common sense), and "maybe" Paolo Romeo, of Palermo (the anti-Traditionalist former scheming nuncio in Italy), and the Traditionalist-friendly Luigi de Magistris (who is over 80).

The archbishops of Paris, Warsaw, Minsk are probable names. Ingrao includes the name of the Archbishop of Barcelona, though that does not seem probable. Cardinals from the Americas would include the Archbishop of Washington, and the Archbishop of São Paulo, Odilo Scherer. Bishops of other nations would also be included - probably that of Bombay, Oswald Gracias.

Ingrao states as a certainty that Don Guido Marini will organize the November consistory, and that Archbishop Piero Marini will be named president of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses.

Don Guido - II

The new Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith was named soon after the election of Pope Benedict XVI. Two and a half years have passed since April 2005, and several heads of dicasteries have been replaced: delicate positions such as that of Secretary of State, Prefect of Propaganda Fide, Prefect of Clergy... The head Bugninist in the Congregations (Domenico Sorrentino, former Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship) was replaced in November 2005... Even the motu proprio on the liberalization of the Traditional Mass, which many deemed impossible, has been published. Yet, Archbishop Piero Marini, Master of Pontifical Liturgical Ceremonies, has remained in his place.

Andrea Tornielli writes today in his blog that Monsignor Guido Marini (more about him here) will be named the new Master of Pontifical Liturgical Ceremonies next week, maybe on Monday.

__________________
Recess for a few days.

Traditional Mass: Sign of Contradiction In Italy and around the world

From the Friday edition of Italian daily Il Foglio:

Debate in the CEI (Italian Episcopal Conference): the motu proprio on the Mass should not be interpreted, but applied.

ROME. Last Monday, in his opening statement to the meeting of the Permanent Council [of the Italian Episcopal Conference-CEI], the President of the CEI, Archbishop of Genoa Angelo Bagnasco, had included a decidedly positive reception of the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum" by which Benedict XVI has recognized the full citizenship of the pre-Conciliar Mass in the Catholic Church, liberalizing its use.

Yet, from the first interventions in the discussion which happenedbehind closed doors, it was understood that not all think thus in the little parliament of the CEI. Critical words towards the so-called Tridentine Mass came from the Archbishop of Lanciano, Carlo Ghidelli, a Lombard, and from [the Archbishop] of Chieti, Bruno Forte, a Neapolitan, both of them former students of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini.

The Archbishop of Lucca, Benvenuto Italo Castellani, the Archbishop of Palermo, Paolo Romeo (in the line to receive the cardinalatial porpora in the next consistory), and the Bishop of Cerignola, Felice di Molfetta -- president of the Episcopal Commission for the Liturgy and who, in the past, was harshly critical even towards "Redemptionis Sacramentum", the instruction against liturgical abuses published in 2004 by the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship, in agreement with the [Congregation] for the Doctrine of the Faith, guided by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- also spoke against the Missal fully rehabilitated by the reigning Pontiff.

The common thread of all these critical interventions was, on one hand, the charge that the old Missal is imbibed in an ecclesiology now incompatible with that which would be expressed by the new Missal, a product of the liturgical reform effected in the post-Council, and, on the other, the call for the CEI to take responsibility for the preparation of an interpretative document of the motu proprio for its application, in an obviously restrictive sense, in the Italian Church.

The attempt to weaken "Summorum Pontificum" in the very nation which has the Pope as its primate was nonetheless voided.

The demand for the promulgation of an interpretative document was not accepted also because Cardinals of great relevance, such as Camillo Ruini, Carlo Caffarra, and Angelo Scola, expressed themselves against this possibility in clear interventions.

...

The perplexities of consistent sectors of the Italian Church regarding the motu proprio had already been revealed in late August, in Spoleto, where the 58th National Liturgical Week was celebrated. At the time, many liturgists had asked Bishop Di Molfetta to convey to the Pope, with a letter endorsed by the CEI, the concerns and perplexities with the liberalization of the pe-Conciliar Mass. But the secretary of the CEI, Bishop Giuseppe Betori, avoided signing it.

Bagnasco speaks on the Motu Proprio

From the main address of the President of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, to the permanent council of the Conference (September 17, 2007).

The initiative regarding which even the intra-Church attention has been focused in the past few months is the "Motu proprio" Summorum Pontificum, on the use of the Roman liturgy prior to the reform of 1970 and officially in force from the past September 14. The goal of this pronouncement is clearly entirely spiritual and pastoral. In fact, on the one hand, "it behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer" - as the Pope writes in the accompanying letter to the "Motu proprio" -; on the other, it is necessary "to make every effort to enable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew".

Within this horizon, he deigns to include as an "extraordinary" expression in the lex orandi of the Church the Roman Missal promulgated by Saint Pius V and aggiornato by Blessed John XXIII in 1962, though the "ordinary" way remains the Roman Missal published by Paul VI in 1970. And he insists in clarifying that there will not be two rites, but "two uses of the one Roman rite", who all [of us] wish always to be at the center of the ecclesial life, an occasion of full "reconciliation" and of a living unity in the Church herself.

What the Pope encourages us to adopt, beyond the cultural forces to which one is necessarily susceptible, is thus an inclusive, and not a confrontational, interpretative key. In the history of the liturgy, as in the life of the Church, there is "growth and progress, but never rupture", as he had already had the chance to affirm in the speech to the Roman Curia of December 22, 2005. In fact, in that occasion, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, he indicated as valid not "the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture", but rather that of "reform, of renewal in continuity with the one subject-Church". In other words, it is the solicitude for the unity of the Church "in space and time" the motivating force which moves Benedict XVI, a matter which fundamentally pertains to the Successor of Peter.

But this passion for unity must move every Christian and every pastor considering the prospects which are opened with the "Motu proprio". And not, therefore, the search for a personal aesthetic fancy, detached from the community and often in opposition to others, but a will to include oneself always more in the Mystery of the Church which prays and celebrates, not excluding anyone and without a forestalling opposition regarding other liturgical forms or regarding the Second Vatican Council. Only thus will it be avoided that a measure intended towards greater unity and fervor in the Christian community be used instead to hurt and divide it.

I wish to add, nonetheless, that I am reasonably optimistic on a better appraisal of the "Motu proprio" in the life of our parishes. And I trust that certain pessimistic concerns, voiced [at the time], soon showed themselves to be unfounded. The sense of balance which has always characterized our clergy and, therefore, our pastoral [work], will allow [us] to find, thanks to the moderating action of the Bishops, the just way to make the new bud blossom in the living plant of ecclesial liturgy, and even, as a final result, to relaunch and increase the latter in its entirety.

Don Guido

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.

First, Andrea Tornielli, on the September 2 edition of Il Giornale; now, Sandro Magister. The most interesting report, though, is that of a local Genoese news site, Primocanale, which details several changes in the local Curia, related to the probable departure of Don Guido Marini for Rome - and which would seem to indicate that the Papal move is imminent.

UPDATE (2245 GMT): It seems to be all but certain, as even Zenit (German edition) reports this imminent move (tip: Berolinensis).

Bagnasco replaces Ruini

Yes, it seems like old news, but the replacement of Cardinal Ruini at the helm of the powerful Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) -- the Archbishop of Genoa, Angelo Bagnasco-- was officially made public only today.

Ruini remains as the Cardinal Vicar of His Holiness for the Diocese of Rome.

Ruini's successor: Bagnasco

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.

From Genoa

The Archdiocese of Genoa, headed by Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco (very close to Cardinal Bertone, his predecessor in Liguria), made public today a very substantial note on the prospect of the Motu proprio for the liberalization of the Traditional Mass. The whole text is available here.

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
...

1) the Pope, due to his supreme authority, has the faculty to put in practice universally valid and binding juridical and pastoral acts;
...

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;

...