Online Edition:
February 2012
Vol. XVII, No. 10
News and Views
Exploring Sacred Music Seminar 2012 | Pope Names 22 New Cardinals: 2 from US | American Nuncio for a Tense Ireland | 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Ireland | Msgr. Moroney to be Rector of Boston’s Seminary | Saint Joan of Arc’s 600th Birthday
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Exploring Sacred Music Seminar 2012
“Music of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation” is the subject of the 2012 Exploring Sacred Music Seminar, sponsored by the Cathedral Concerts in St. Louis. The seminar consists of five Thursday morning lectures, January 26-February 23, held at 10:30 a.m. in the St. Cecilia Chapel of the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica, followed by lunch with the presenters.
This year’s seminar’s focus on the 16th century — the age of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation — will include Lutheran and Anglican perspectives, as well as the Catholic repertoire of the late Renaissance, still called the “Golden Age” of church music; and finally, how liturgy and music in the 20th century had its own version of a “reformation” followed by a “reform of the reform”.
The lectures in this series are:
Reformation & Counter-Reformation Overview – Dr. James Hitchcock, Professor of History at St. Louis University;
Luther’s Reformation and Its Music – Peter Reske, of Concordia Publishing House;
The English Reformation – Philip Barnes, artistic director of the St. Louis Chamber Chorus;
The Roman Response and Music of the Counter-Reformation – Dr. Horst Buchholz, music director of the Archdiocese of St. Louis and the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, and director of St. Louis Cathedral Concerts;
Liturgical Music Reforms in the 20th Century – Helen Hitchcock, editor of The Adoremus Bulletin, co-founder of Adoremus – Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy.
Information: cathedralconcerts.org
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Pope Names 22 New Cardinals: 2 from US
Pope Benedict XVI named 22 new cardinals following Mass on January 6, the Solemnity of the Epiphany. The new cardinals, 18 of whom are under 80 and thus eligible to be papal electors, will be formally elevated at a ceremony on February 18 at St. Peter’s in Rome.
The list includes three North Americans: New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops; Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, former archbishop of Baltimore who is now Grand Master of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher; and Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins.
With the appointment of Cardinal-designate Dolan, the Archdiocese of New York will have two “voting” cardinals for a short time. Cardinal Edward Egan, who served as archbishop of New York from 2000-2009, will turn 80 in April.
The appointments raised the total of eligible electors to 125, and the number of US cardinals to 13.
Most of the new cardinals are European, including 16 Italians; however, in addition to the North Americans, the list also included prelates from China, India, and Brazil.
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American Nuncio for a Tense Ireland
Archbishop Charles Brown, 52, a native New Yorker who has served since 1994 as an official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was named apostolic nuncio to Ireland on November 26. On January 6, Pope Benedict ordained two men whom he had appointed nuncios, Archbishop Brown and Archbishop Marek Solczynski of Poland, the new nuncio to Georgia and Armenia.
Archbishop Brown assumes the role of Holy See ambassador at a moment of unprecedented tension between the Vatican and Ireland, and at a time of a serious crisis within the Irish Church as a result of clerical sex abuse. The previous nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, was reassigned last July, after Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny and others denounced the Vatican’s handling of abuse cases. Also last November 3, the Irish government announced it was closing its embassy to the Holy See, and, although diplomatic relations would be maintained, the Irish ambassador would no longer live in Rome
In light of these tensions, it is significant that Irish Cardinals Sean Brady and Desmond Connell and two other bishops, along with Ireland’s newly appointed ambassador to the Holy See, David Cooney, attended Archbishop Brown’s ordination ceremony.
Mr. Cooney, who continues as Ireland’s secretary general of the Department of Foreign Affairs, welcomed the new nuncio’s appointment; and Cardinal Brady was quoted in the Irish Times as saying, “I wish him [Archbishop Brown] many blessings in his new ministry. I am confident that he will do excellent work in both forging strong and fruitful diplomatic links between Ireland and the Holy See … and in the promotion of renewal of the Church in Ireland”.
The Irish government has recently been receiving pressure to re-open its embassy to the Holy See from a Catholic group with support from members of different political parties, called Ireland Stand Up. On January 18, about fifty members of the Irish parliament met with 100 members of the group.
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50th International Eucharistic Congress in Ireland
Every four years, an International Eucharistic Congress is celebrated by thousands of Catholics from around the world. This year the event will take place in Dublin, Ireland, June 10-17.
The theme for the 50th International Eucharistic Congress is “The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with one another”. The week consists of daily events linking faith and culture, with a particular focus on the gathering of people of every nation, language, and way of life around the table of the Lord. The week will include large public Eucharistic celebrations, plus venues for song, drama, lectures, and international fellowship.
The last such event took place in Quebec City in 2008.
Pilgrimages are now being planned in many dioceses, including one from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, to be led by auxiliary Bishop Edward Rice (archstl.org).
Further details and updates are accessible on the official International Eucharistic Congress website: iec2012.ie.
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Msgr. Moroney to be Rector of Boston’s Seminary
Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley announced on January 19 his appointment of Monsignor James Moroney as rector of St. John’s Seminary, effective July 1. He succeeds Bishop Arthur L. Kennedy, who will become Episcopal Vicar for the New Evangelization for the archdiocese.
A priest of the diocese of Worcester, Monsignor Moroney, 58, has been deeply involved in liturgical work for many years, and has been teaching liturgy at the seminary since 2008. He was executive director of the US Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship (BCDW) for 12 years, beginning in 1996. Prior to that, he was chairman of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions (FDLC).
Monsignor Moroney is a consultor to the Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW) and since 2001 has been secretary of Vox Clara, the international committee of bishops and experts from English-speaking countries who advise the CDW on liturgical translations. He had served as rector of St. Paul’s Cathedral in his native Worcester from 2008 until January 2011.
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Saint Joan of Arc’s 600th Birthday
In observance of the 600th anniversary of the birth of Saint Joan of Arc, French President Nicholas Sarkozy visited the village of Domremy-La-Pucelle, where the “Maid of Orleans” was born on January 6, 1412. He said of the revered national heroine, “The place of Joan of Arc was not in gilded legend, but in the history of France”.
Mr. Sarkozy mentioned the English enemy that Joan of Arc fought against, but he stressed that Saint Joan represented “love of one’s country without hatred of others”; and that “Joan is the incarnation of the most beautiful French virtues”.
The devout young Joan led the French to several victories over the English during the Hundred Years War. She was taken prisoner in 1430, endured a protracted trial for heresy and witchcraft, and was burned at the stake on May 30, 1431. She was canonized in 1920.
Pope Benedict XVI hailed Saint Joan as an example of faith and witness in his Wednesday audience January 26, 2011. He said that she “understood that Love embraces the whole of the reality of God and of the human being, of Heaven and of earth, of the Church and of the world”.
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