Pope Benedict's liturgical reform stalled- time for a new Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship




The current incumbent started running crowned with laurels in advance of the race - and has in the four years of his activities established a disappointing record.

With the Motu Proprio 'Summorum Pontificum', of 7 uly 2007 Pope Benedict XVI founded a new liturgical reform movement. This holds many faithful, priests and seminarians in its spell. In the same year, he chose a native of Genoa, Monsignor Guido Marini as his master of ceremonies. At the same time he sent the Bugnini-schooled, liturgy destroyer, Archbishop Piero Marini , whom he inherited from his predecessor, into the desert. 

Zero initiatives 
In December 2008, Antonio Cardinal Cañizares Llovera (66) of Toledo was appointed prefect of the liturgy congregation. He had made a name in Spain as a theologian and catechist .  But after almost four years after his appointment of Cardinal, the balance is very meager. No impulse to revitalize the tradition. No curb of excessive liturgical abuses.

Nothing. The Cardinal seems to rest assured, that the concerns of the traditionalists have been moved to the CDF and are considered directly by the Pope. 

A new Liturgy Prefect  is needed

The result: The renewal of the liturgy - a central theme of the current pontificate - does not move forward. This is the reason that the desire increases in the circle of papal master of ceremonies as well as among the liturgical consultants that the orthodox Cardinal Cañizares should be moved. A move to the Congregation for Education would be possible if the present incumbent, Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski (72) would resign soon.  Another possibility would be to Mission Congregation if Fernando Cardinal Filoni (66) was to be appointed the next Secretary of State. Cardinal Cañizares could also be a candidate for the new appointment to the now meaningless post at the CDF. 

Maybe he would make a difference

The natural candidate for the succession as Liturgy Prefect is the US born prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, Cardinal Raymond Burke (63). He is a canonist. In the past, he has founded and encouraged traditional communities.  Cardinal Burke has written books on the decay of the liturgy and celebrated regularly in the Roman Rite.

 As Bishop of La Crosse in Wisconsin and as Archbishop of Saint Louis in the US State of Louisiana, he helped his dioceses achieve new heights. He encouraged the rediscovery and cleaning of the liturgy as a true evangelization, prayer, concern for vocations, the seminaries and was uncompromising in his fight against the abortion ideology and the gay delusion. 

de facto Cardinal Burke has occupied the position which Cardinal Cañizares has left empty. And, for many he is the only member of the College of Cardinals, who would continue the concerns of the pontificate of Benedict XVI as the next Pope.

Comments

JP said…
I have the feeling, and I pray it is not true, that Cardinal Burke--may Almighty God bless him abundantly with a plenitude of heavenly graces--is the next incarnation, so to speak, of Cardinal Siri: the man who should be Pope, but never quite makes it. I pray that when the Lord calls Pope Benedict to his eternal reward, that Cardinal Burke succeeds him as the Roman Pontiff.

Pope Pius XIII, perhaps? ...Or perhaps Leo XIV, given his middle name.

Placeat tibi, sempiterne omnipotens Deus, per intercessionem Beatae Semper Virginis Dei Genitricis Mariae, ut S.R.E. Cardinalem Burke inducere in officium Romani Pontificis digneris proxime per gratiarum plenitudinem implendam in cordibus Cardinalium tuorum ut recte et devote posteritatem Ecclesiae tuae diligant. Per Christum Dominum Nostrum, Amen.