Conflicts of interests in the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The academic clique who want to destroy the Latin Mass.
Dicastery for Liturgy and Teaching. An awkward proximity.
Those in charge of the Dicastery, from left to right: Mgr Corrado Maggioni (former under-secretary), Mgr Viola (secretary), the prefect, Mgr Arthur Roche and Mgr García Macías (under-secretary).
Thierry Blot, a priest from the Diocese of Belley-Ars, historian and canonist, is very familiar with the dicastery responsible for the liturgy, having been its secretary for twenty years, when it was called the "Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments". He underlined the incompatibility between the function of professor of liturgy and that of official within the dicastery. According to him, the accumulation of the two offices constitutes a conflict of interest.
In an article in the Nuova Bussola Quotidiana of 27 February 2023, we learn that two of the officials of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments have a common characteristic: they teach at the Pontifical Athenaeum of St. Anselm in Rome. This is the case of the Secretary, His Grace Monsignor Vittorio Viola, who has been teaching liturgy there since 2000 and still holds the chair of professor of sacramental liturgy. Then there is one of the two under-secretaries, Bishop Aurelio García Macías. Both he and the other under-secretary, Bishop Krzysztof Marcjanowicz, are doctors of liturgy at St Anselm's.
This situation is not new, since the former under-secretary, Father Corrado Maggioni, a Montfortian, also continued to teach at St Anselm's while he was working in the Dicastery.
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With regard to these people who serve in the Dicastery in charge of the Church's liturgy while teaching as professors or lecturers at the Pontifical University of St. Anselm, the question may be raised of the risk of a "conflict of interest", by analogy with political-economic realities, hence the incompatibility between these two functions.
For example, Bishop Viola, the number two of the Dicastery, as a professor, has the right to participate in the Council of the Saint Anselm Institute. Given the specificity of the liturgy, a very sensitive subject, which realistically gives rise to a mixture of different and even contradictory ideas, expressions of a pluralism of fundamental options or "schools", there is a legitimate fear that particular positions may exert a one-sided influence on the world liturgy by forging far too close a link with the dicastery in charge of the liturgy.
Opinions are often diverse, except on one point: with regard to the Tridentine liturgy, the "Vetus Ordo", the one that dominates among the teachers of the Saint Anselm Institute consists in advocating its eradication in the liturgy of the Church of today (1) and of tomorrow (2).
The service of the Roman Curia on the one hand and teaching on the other, at least as far as the liturgy is concerned, should be separated. Those professors and lecturers who serve in the Roman Curia should be put on leave for the entire period of their service. Those who serve in the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which is responsible for the Church's liturgy, should have as their only reference the liturgical norms in force and the sole aim of applying them, leaving aside their own ideas, which, on the other hand, are legitimately those of the teacher and the researcher (3).
It is a pity that in the reform of the Roman Curia, at least as far as the Dicastery in charge of the liturgy is concerned, no thought has been given to specifying such an incompatibility, which is a source of subjectivism and relativism, thus considerably weakening the value and impact of the decisions of the Dicastery (4), which, it should be remembered and emphasised, is a governing body. Governing or deciding, and not opening debates by multiplying media interviews or colloquiums, is even its main raison d'être.
Unlike the professor of liturgy, an official of a dicastery - and of course one of its officials who has the signature - is not asked what he thinks of a particular liturgical norm, but that he applies it with diligence, balance and conviction, for the common good of the Church. Such a service, which includes an absolute reserve - in this case the pontifical secret - may appear more austere, or even less humanly gratifying than teaching, but it is indispensable to the life of the Church.
Moreover, for the member of the Curia, this self-denial has its own spiritual fruitfulness, for the renunciations that this service implies for a bishop or priest are the expression of his unconditional love for the Church, which is similar to that of Christ the Bridegroom towards the Church the Bride: "Christ loved the Church, and gave himself up for her, that he might make her holy by the washing of baptismal water, accompanied by a word; he wished to present her to himself, this Church, resplendent, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing; he wished her to be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:25-27).
In his 2013 greetings to the Roman Curia, Pope Francis said: "Holiness for you means a life immersed in the Holy Spirit, openness of heart to God, constant prayer, profound humility, fraternal charity in relations with colleagues. It also means discreet, faithful pastoral service, carried out with zeal".
Finally, this often admirable detachment which makes the service in the Roman Curia great is also and above all a source of credibility and confidence which, it must be said clearly, are well diminished in our days in the context of the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes. We can only hope for such an awareness, which would allow those responsible for the Church's liturgy to adopt, with regard to the "vetus ordo", the just and equitable attitude advocated by the former prefect of the dicastery, Cardinal Robert Sarah, which he summed up in this very apt reflection: "No one is too much in God's Church" (interview in Le Figaro on 13 August 2021).
1 This concerns the use of parish churches and diocesan priests ordained after 16 July 2021: "If a diocesan bishop has granted dispensations in the two cases mentioned above, he is obliged to inform the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which will evaluate the individual cases." Rescript of 21 February 2023.
2 It is also a question of marginalising the so-called "Ecclesia Dei" communities, with a view to their extinction in the medium or long term.
3 On condition, however, that they are scientifically established and not the result of more or less deviant ideologies.
4 Such a measure could be included in the new Regulations of the Roman Curia, or even in those of the dicastery responsible for the liturgy.
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