Friday, February 17, 2012

EF Friendly Ordinary Appointed Bishop of Lourdes

Just a quick note before the weekend about this story today on Chiesa: The ancient rite reappears in Lourdes.

The story relates to the appointment of Mgr. Brouwet to the French diocese of Lourdes:

Following the "personal" appointment of Bishop Francis Moraglia as patriarch of Venice, Benedict XVI has hit a similar shot with the Church of France.

He did so last Saturday, February 11, the feast of the Blessed Virgin of Lourdes, when he appointed the new bishop of the diocese in which the famous Marian shrine stands, that of Tarbes and Lourdes. Pope Joseph Ratzinger has called to this post Nicolas Brouwet, who will turn 50 next August 31, since April of 2008 the auxiliary bishop of Nanterre, the diocese in which he was born and was ordained a priest in 1992.

The story continues:

The choice of Brouwet, like that of Moraglia, did not go through the scrutiny of the cardinals and bishops of the relevant congregation in one of their regular Thursday meetings. Both will take possession of their respective dioceses on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation.

[...]

Bishop Brouwet, however, although he is young, is recognized as having a liturgical sensibility that is particularly faithful to tradition. Last December 25, he celebrated Christmas Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, according to the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum." He has also participated in the traditionalist pilgrimages from Paris to Chartres on Pentecost. His stance on moral issues is also in keeping with tradition.

This does not mean that Brouwet is a traditionalist tout court; it is enough to see his official photos in clerical dress to understand this. He belongs instead to that generation of young priests who, like pope Ratzinger, consider the traditionalist world – very lively in France even in its non-Lefebvrist component – more as a resource than as a problem, unlike the progressive old guard of the episcopate, less and less influential...

Lourdes is not a cardinal diocese, but with its famous Marian shrine it is like the spiritual heart of France. It is there, in fact, that the plenary assembly of French bishops regularly meets. Not to mention the international dimension of the diocese. Faithful, seminarians, priests, bishops and cardinals from around the world arrive there. Some problems of an administrative nature that have been seen recently in the diocese have been monitored with special attention by the Holy See as well.

For all these reasons, it is even more significant that Benedict XVI has entrusted the diocese of Lourdes to a young bishop with well-defined characteristics like Brouwet.

Read the entire story on Chiesa.

More recent articles:


Epiphany and Its Customs
The Adoration of the Magi, 1525-30, by Girolamo da Santacroce Epiphany is a great feast in both East and West, albeit with different inflections. In the Byzantine and other Eastern rites, Christmas begins a holy period that culminates with Epiphany; Epiphany, therefore, is the greatest feast of the Christmas season. In the Roman and other West...

Special Chants for the Epiphany 2025
As they do every year, our friends of the Schola Sainte Cécile have posted on their website the current year’s Proclamation of the Movable Feasts, which is traditionally sung after the Gospel on the feast of the Epiphany. Also known from its first word as the Noveritis, its tone is basically the same as that of the Exsultet. Here it is in a jpg, wh...

Year-long Palestrina500 Festival Formally Opens with Pontifical Mass
On Monday, December 9th, Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Grand Rapids, Michigan kicked off their year-long festival, Palestrina500, with a Mass celebrated by the Bishop of Grand Rapids and sung by the parish’s choirs.The Most Reverend David Walkowiak celebrated a Novus Ordo Mass concelebrated by the parish’s pastor, Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd, STL, pastor...

Durandus on the Divine Office of the Circumcision
The octave of the Nativity expresses a two-fold matter: one part is the Circumcision of the Lord, which is narrated in the Gospel (Luke 2, 21), the other is the coming of man to God. For there is a two-fold coming, namely, of Christ to men, which is celebrated in the Nativity, and of men to Christ, which is celebrated on its octave, as noted by the...

Te Deum on New Year’s Eve
It has long been a custom in Catholic churches to sing the Te Deum, the hymn of thanksgiving par excellence, on New Year’s Eve, to thank God for all of the blessings received over the course of the previous year, and then to invoke His blessings for the coming year by singing the Veni, Creator Spiritus on New Year’s Day. In Rome, the Pope and card...

The Second Anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s Death
Deus, qui inter summos sacerdótes fámulum tuum Benedictum ineffábili tua dispositióne connumerári voluisti: praesta, quáesumus; ut, qui Unigéniti Filii tui vices in terris gerébat, sanctórum tuórum Pontíficum consortio perpétuo aggregétur. Per eundem Christum, Dóminum nostrum. Amen.God, Who in Thy ineffable providence, did will that Thy servant Ben...

A Byzantine Hymn for Christmas
When Augustus reigned alone upon earth, the many kingdoms of men came to an end, * and when Thou wast made man of the pure Virgin, the many gods of idolatry were destroyed. * The cities of the world passed under one single rule, and the nations came to believe in one sovereign Godhead. * The peoples were enrolled by the decree of Caesar, and we, th...

December 30: Mere Christmas Day
Adoration of the Shepherds, the theme of today’s GospelOne might think that the best way to honor the great mystery of the birth of the God-man is to devote eight days exclusively to its celebration. And yet in their inspired wisdom, all of the historic and apostolic liturgies mix the Octave of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ with the cult of...

The Station Churches of the Christmas Season (Part 2)
By the end of the fifth century, there were a number of Roman churches dedicated to St Stephen the First Martyr, including a monastery behind St Peter’s in the Vatican, and a large basilica on the via Latina. That which was chosen as the station church of his feast day, St Stephen’s on the Caelian Hill, is the one closest to the ancient Papal resid...

St Thomas of Canterbury 2024
St Thomas à Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral on December 29th, 1170, less than a month after he had returned from six years of exile in France, where he had been driven by a long persecution at the hands of King Henry II of England. The murder was followed by a wave of revulsion throughout Europe, which did much to promote the reforms wi...

For more articles, see the NLM archives: