Saturday, July 04, 2009

Second Undersecretary for the CDW appointed

As we learn from today's bollettino of the Press Office of the Holy See,

The Holy Father has apoointed a second Undersecretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments: the Rev. Mons. Juan Miguel Ferrer Grenesche, until now Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Toledo (Spain).

Mons. Ferrer had already in April been appointed a Consultor to the Congregation for Divine Worship (cf. Significant Nominations for the Congregation for Divine Worship). Mons. Ferrer was the Vicar General of the new Prefect of the CDW and former Archbishop of Toledo, Cardinal Cañizares, and has previously been mentioned on the NLM as co-organiser and participant in training workshops for the Extraordinary Form in Toledo (see NLM reports here and here). He also is Mozarabic Chaplain of the Cathedral of Toledo and parish priest of the parish of Santo Tomé where Mass in the usus antiquior is celebrated daily. Taking into account that the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei is to be attached to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it seems not unreasonable to speculate - but keep in mind that at this point it is no more than that - that the appointment of Mons. Ferrer as a second Undersecretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments - a post which did not exist before, and which therefore in my mind implies (although not necessarily) new responsibilites - could mean that the competence of that Pontifical Commission pertaining to strictly liturgical matters will be transferred to the Congregation for Divine Worship.

The NLM will endeavour to learn more about this development.


Mons. Ferrer to the right of Card. Cañizares at the Corpus Christi procession in Toledo. Before anyone asks: the wearing of the pallium with the cope is not foreseen by the rubrics, as far as I know, but seems customary in Toledo, as you can see in older photographs. Thanks for this picture to the Fraternity of Christ the Priest.

More recent articles:


Video and Pictures of an Anglican Sarum Liturgy in London
On Saturday, February 1st, the Oxford-based early music group Antiquum Documentum sang a celebration of Candlemas according to the Use of Sarum at the Anglican church of Great St Bartholomew in London. The church’s YouTube channel has posted a video of the complete ceremony; our thanks to Antiquum Documentum for sharing these pictures with us as we...

More Pictures of the Feast of St Agatha in Catania
Last week, we shared Peter’s pictures of the celebrations of the feast of St Agatha in her native city of Catania in Sicily. Another friend of ours, Dom Jakobus, a canon regular of Herzogenburg Abbey in Austria, was also there, and graciously agreed to share his pictures with us. Those of the Saint’s reliquary and the procession of it through the c...

Entering Heaven on Earth with the Photography of Fr Lawrence Lew OP
One of our best Catholic photographers, Fr. Lawrence Lew, OP, whose work has very often been shared at NLM over the years, has given us a new book that will be of great interest to all readers here:Entering Heaven on Earth: The Signs, Symbols, and Saints of Catholic Churches It’s a stupendous coffee-table encyclopedia comprising just what the ...

Newsreels of the Lourdes Centennial Celebrations in 1958
From the always-interesting archive of the old newsreel channel British Pathé, here is their piece on the celebrations for the centennial of the first Apparition of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes, February 11, 1958. It is remarkable to see how respectful this coverage is, from what we would now call a mainstream media outlet in a country with such long...

The Surprising Philosophical Sophistication of the Art of Paleolithic Man
...And Lessons that Could Be Learned From Them by the Neandertals in Our UniversitiesHere are wall paintings from underground caverns in Lascaux in the Dordogne region of southwest France, east of Bordeaux. Around 600 paintings exist in a network of underground caverns; archeologists estimate that they were painted during the Upper Paleolithic peri...

The Feast of Saint Scholastica
Scholastica, the sister of our venerable Father Benedict, who was dedicated to the Lord Almighty from her infancy, was wont to come visit her brother once a year. The man of God went to her not far from the gate (of his monastery), at a place that belonged to it. Once, she came according to her custom, and her venerable brother with his monks went...

The Beginning of Ambrosian Forelent
The Ambrosian season after Epiphany presents some interesting and unique characteristics compared with the same period in the Roman Rite. In the latter, from its first attestation in the Lectionary of Würzburg, the season has a full compliment of Gospel readings; in the Ambrosian Rite, on the other hand, the liturgical texts of the season were slo...

Epiphany Celebration at the Palestrina500 Festival
On Monday, January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany, the church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Grand Rapids, Michigan, welcomed Schola Antiqua of Chicago to sing a choral meditation and Mass for the second major event of the parish’s Palestrina500 festival, a year-long celebration in honor of the fifth centennial of the great composer’s birth. The c...

St Luke the Younger, and the Monastery of Hosios Loukas
In the Byzantine Rite, today is the feast of a Saint called Luke, a monk who lived in the 10th century, and is traditionally known by a variety of epithets: “the Younger”, to distinguish him from the Evangelist; “of Steiris” or “Steirion”, the place where he died and was buried; “of Hellas”, the Greek word for “Greece”; and “the Wonderworker” (Thau...

The In spiritu humilitatis
Lost in Translation #119The traditional Roman liturgy follows a reasonable pattern. After offering first the bread and then the wine (once it has been prepared), the priest offers himself: In spíritu humilitátis et in ánimo contríto suscipiámur a te, Dómine: et sic fiat sacrificium nostrum in conspectu tuo hodie, ut pláceat tibi, Dómine Deus. Whi...

For more articles, see the NLM archives: