Rorate: rumor of a new Prefect for CDW becoming firmer

This is on Rorate.

[Antonio] Cardinal Cañizares Llovera, Primate of Spain [Archbp. of Toledo]: the new Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments? The Spanish press, which had anticipated the move for months, does not consider it a rumor anymore, but as a certainty…

Quite a few of my people at the CDW are on the road at the moment, as am I.

However, later in the week I will be spending a couple days with Card. Arinze.  He is very discreet when it comes to these things, but perhaps if there is some solid news before he arrives where I will also be, he could shed some light.

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9 Comments

  1. Andrew says:

    Well I will certainly regret the departure of Cardinal Arinze. All those years Pope John Paul seemed to defy death, it was fun to think he might be his successor. Because most of us (Ratzinger included) believed he was out of the running. Well I certainly did not regret his election, and pray the Benedictine reform continue, even without the loquacious African in the Vatican who became his first cardinal bishop. But the guy from Toledo doesn’t sound bad at all.

  2. Andrew says:

    Ah on reading what I wrote a second time, I meant to say that we believed Ratzinger was out of the running, including himself.

  3. athanasius says:

    I should really have liked Archbishop Ranjith, I feel he has been given the snub by the Romanitá of the Vatican apparatus for being inconvenient.

    As a side point, is there any truth to what Bishop Fellay said prior to the release of the Motu Proprio, that Cardinal Arinze was trying to stop it? I never heard that substantiated.

  4. RBrown says:

    I should really have liked Archbishop Ranjith, I feel he has been given the snub by the Romanitá of the Vatican apparatus for being inconvenient.

    I don’t know whether Abp Ranjith has been given the snub, but the word is that he’s frustrated in his present job. Perhaps he’ll return home or be the replacement for Cardinal Re.

    As a side point, is there any truth to what Bishop Fellay said prior to the release of the Motu Proprio, that Cardinal Arinze was trying to stop it? I never heard that substantiated.
    Comment by athanasius

    I think it was said that Cardinal Arinze was against it.

  5. John says:

    Cardinal Canizares Lloverda
    1. Is youngish, 62
    2. He ordained priests using the old rite for The Institure of Christ the King Soverign Priest in Italy this year (and apparently was criticized in Spain for using the Cappa Magna.)
    3. I think he is a member of the Ecclesia Dei Commission
    4. Benedict XVI created him cardinal in 2006, ahead of the Cardinal-Archbishops of Valencia and Barcelona, who where both older in age and in seniority as bishops.
    5. It seems to me that more often than not the Secretary of a Dicastry is not directly promoted to Prefect, but, goes somewhere else.

  6. Andrew says:

    Athanasius,

    Cardinal Arinze was not against the motu proprio, but he did want a much stricter application of it.

    He believed that the looser rules on the celebration of the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite (ie without the permission of a bishop), should only apply when a request for this had been received by a minimum of a hundred persons.

    Thankfully, Pope Benedict did not agree with this, and much latitude is permitted in interpreting what constitutes a “stable group” of Latin Mass adherents, in the motu proprio.

    That being said, I still regret Cardinal Arinze’s departure. Because as I mentioned in a previous post, over the last 20 or so years, there has not been a more articulate exponent of just plain garden variety orthodoxy in the Curia, and that includes deficiencies in the ordinary celebration of liturgy, which is as equally, if not more difficult a problem to fix, than loosening restrictions on the celebration of the old missal.

  7. “4. Benedict XVI created him cardinal in 2006, ahead of the Cardinal-Archbishops of Valencia and Barcelona, who where both older in age and in seniority as bishops.”

    That is because Cardinal Canizares-Llovera is the Archbishop of Toledo and
    the Primate of Spain. Unlike Valencia and Barcelona, which have not always been
    cardinalitial sees, almost all the Archbishops of Toledo have been cardinals for
    hundreds of years. Even without the Cardinal’s hat, the Archbishop of Toledo
    ranks among the highest and most prestigious prelates in the whole world.

    During the years of the Spanish Empire, it was said that the Archbishop of
    Toledo was practically a little Pope.

  8. David O'Rourke says:

    I remember Cardinal Arinze being quoted as saying that he thought things were fine as they were under the 1988 Indult system. In any event he has never shown any enthusiam for the TLM or for summorum Pontificum.

    Question: I wonder how much the CDW really has to do with the EF. It seems to me that matters regrding it go to the PCED. This could be a temporary arrangement however. Might the PCED be merged into the CDW after the overdue retirement of Cardinal Hoyos or might Archbishop Ranjith succeed Cardinal Hoyos as head of the PCED, receive a red hat (even though the PCED is not a dicastry) and get a seat on the CDW.

  9. Louis E. says:

    It’s hard to call the retirement of Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos “overdue” when he is the only head of Ecclesia Dei ever to assume office before turning 75,and none have ever retired until after turning 80!

    I have seen Cardinal Canizares Llovera called “the little Ratzinger” and named on lists of papabili…time will tell.Given the prominence of Toledo whoever succeeds him as Archbishop can be expected to become a Cardinal before too long…I think Spanish blogs have speculated but I am not familiar with the supposed candidates.Someone who will continue to demand an end to same-sex “marriage” in Spain,I hope!

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