Online Edition: October 2009
Vol. XV, No. 7
News & Views
Vox Clara News | Synod on Eastern Catholic Churches | Pope Benedict to Meet with Artists | Dublin: International Eucharistic Congress
The seventeenth meeting of Vox Clara took place August 27-29 at the North American College in Rome. Most of the meeting was spent in a final review of four White Book translations of the Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia, as produced by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) and recently approved by several conferences of bishops.
Following their discussion of the ICEL renderings of Masses for Various Needs and Intentions, Ritual Masses, Votive Masses, Masses for the Dead, and the Order of Mass II, the committee submitted its recommendations to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW) concerning the definitive confirmation of these texts.
Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, OP, recently appointed Secretary of the CDW, attended the meeting for the first time.
Archbishop Di Noia thanked the Vox Clara committee for its work in applying “the critical distinction between translating a text and translating a sacred text in the vernacular.” He also thanked Vox Clara for offering additional assistance to the CDW, noting, in particular, the need for assuring the technical quality and internal consistency of the new Missal.
Vox Clara is the committee of senior bishops from the English-speaking world that was formed July 19, 2001, by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments to advise the Holy See concerning English-language liturgical books. Cardinal George Pell of Sydney is chairman of Vox Clara.
Participants at the August meeting were Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb, emeritus Mobile, first vice-chairman; Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, emeritus Westminster (England), secretary; Cardinal Justin Rigali, Philadelphia, treasurer; Cardinal Francis George, Chicago; Archbishop Alfred Hughes, emeritus New Orleans; Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, Ottawa (Canada); Archbishop Peter Kwasi Sarpong, emeritus Kumasi (Ghana); Archbishop Kelvin Felix, emeritus Castries (Saint Lucia); and Bishop Philip Boyce, Raphoe (Ireland). (Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Bombay, second vice-chairman, was not present at this meeting.)
The members were assisted in their work by Vox Clara’s executive secretary, Monsignor James P. Moroney, Fathers Jeremy Driscoll, OSB and Dennis McManus, (all of the USA). Monsignor Robert K. Johnson (USA) provided technical support. Several officials of the CDW, led by undersecretary Father Anthony Ward, SM, also assisted at the meeting.
The Vox Clara committee will meet again in January 2010 in Rome.
Source: Vox Clara
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Synod on Eastern Catholic Churches
On September 19, Pope Benedict XVI received Catholic patriarchs and major archbishops from the Oriental Churches, in response to a request the prelates had made on various occasions in the past. At the conclusion of the meeting the pope announced that there will be a special synod October 10-24, 2010, on the theme The Catholic Church in the Middle East: communion and witness: The whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul.
The representatives of the Eastern Churches thanked Pope Benedict for his initiative and highlighted the two facets of their faithfulness: “the bond with the Christian East and the bond with Peter’s Successor, the universal Pastor, with his charism of unity in truth and in love”. They also focused on “a number of more general themes, such as the phenomenon of migration … and the ecumenical and inter-religious context in which their Churches live”.
Participating in the meeting were Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State and Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, alongside the “Heads and Fathers” of all the Eastern Catholic Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome.
In his address to the group, Pope Benedict noted that since the start of his pontificate in 2005, he had begun “an ‘ideal’ pilgrimage into the heart of the Christian East; another stage of this pilgrimage is today’s meeting”, he said, “and it is my intention to continue”.
He referred to the request made by the representatives of the Oriental Churches to have “more frequent contact with the Bishop of Rome in order to strengthen the communion of your Churches with Peter’s Successor and together examine, as necessary, themes of particular importance”. He also referred to the Apostolic Letter Orientale lumen in which Pope John Paul II reiterated “the hope that the Eastern Catholic Churches may flourish and with new apostolic vigor execute the task entrusted to them … to promote the unity of all Christians, especially Eastern Christians, in keeping with the decree on ecumenism”.
Noting that this meeting would examine the problems currently troubling the prelates, to be the subject of the 2009 special synod, Pope Benedict said:
In particular, I do not forget the appeal for peace you placed in my hands at the end of last October’s assembly of the Synod of Bishops. And, on the subject of peace, our thoughts go out first and foremost to the regions of the Middle East.
Source: Vatican Information Service
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Pope Benedict to Meet with Artists
A press conference was held in the Holy See Press Office on September 10 to announce Pope Benedict XVI’s forthcoming meeting with artists, to take place in the Sistine Chapel on November 21.
Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture and of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Patrimony of the Church, and Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums, made the announcement.
“The aim of the meeting is to renew friendship and dialogue between the Church and artists, and to encourage new opportunities for collaboration”, Archbishop Ravasi said.
Antonio Paolucci explained how the artists invited come from all the continents: “They are men and women of different cultures and languages … painters, sculptors, architects, writers and poets, musicians and singers, directors and actors from cinema and theatre, dancers”, he said.
On the evening before their meeting with Pope Benedict, the artists will visit the Vatican Museum’s collection of modern and contemporary art, created at the express wish of Paul VI.
Archbishop Ravasi noted that this meeting with artists coincides with the tenth anniversary of John Paul II’s Letter to Artists of April 4, 1999, and the forty-fifth anniversary of Paul VI’s meeting with artists on May 7, 1964.
Source: Vatican Information Service
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Dublin: International Eucharistic Congress
“The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with one another” will be the theme of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress, to be held in Dublin, Ireland, June 12-17, 2012.
The Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses announced September 22 that the theme of the congress was chosen to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of Vatican Council II. It is “a moment of renewal for the Church’s teaching and for her understanding of herself as Body of Christ and Body of God”, the committee’s communique explains.
Source: Vatican Information Service
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