✣ Order of Malta leader resigns
What happened? Pope Francis intervened in the Order of Malta, reorganising its leadership. Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing resigned at the Pope’s request, while the sacked Grand Chancellor Albrecht von Boeselager (number three) was reinstated. A “papal delegate” will effectively replace the Pope’s current representative, Cardinal Raymond Burke. Francis took action after a Vatican inquiry into the order. The knights had resisted the inquiry, on the grounds that the order is a sovereign entity.What the newspapers said
In the Wall Street Journal, Sohrab Ahmari wrote: “The controversy sheds light on a papacy capable of ruthless politicking, a reality that belies Pope Francis’s reputation in the media for lenience and conviviality.” The Pope overstepped the boundaries of sovereignty, Ahmari said, only when Boeselager was dismissed for alleged failure to stop condom distribution. The Pope “humiliated a Catholic knight for upholding moral orthodoxy”.
In the Guardian, Joanna Moorhead said the real clash was between “rule-bound, traditional, unbending Catholicism”, represented by Fra’ Festing, and “what we might call instinctive Christianity”, represented by the Pope, for whom the major issues aren’t personal morality, but “Trump’s presidency, the refugee crisis and the war in Syria … That’s why the world loves him.”
What Catholic analysts said
John Allen was quoted by the Financial Times as saying: “It will be taken as an index of Francis’s determination not to be cowed by his critics, and not just when it comes to the Knights of Malta.”
The episode was a reminder, Allen said, that when Francis has made a decision, “there’s generally no turning back and no reconsideration”.
Phil Lawler of catholicculture.org said the intervention should “worry all faithful Catholics”. At the moment, said Lawler, “the Vatican is systematically silencing, eliminating and replacing critics of the Pope’s views”.
He cited the sacking of members of the Vatican’s departments for liturgy and doctrine, and “the contemptuous treatment” from senior Vatican operatives “of the four cardinals who submitted dubia about Amoris Laetitia”.
The most overlooked story of the week
✣ Francis orders review of landmark Vatican decree
What happened? Pope Francis has ordered a review of the 2001 decree Liturgiam Authenticam, Vatican commentators have said. The decree, which sets the criteria for translations of the Mass around the world, sought to make Mass texts more faithful to the original Latin. In the English-speaking world it led to a new translation introduced in 2011.Why was it under-reported?
The news has only been reported by two Vatican-watchers, L’Espresso’s Sandro Magister and Gerard O’Connell of America magazine. The Vatican has provided no details of the commission, though it is reportedly led by Archbishop Arthur Roche, secretary of the liturgy office. O’Connell says the move is driven by the Pope’s desire to “give greater responsibility and authority to bishops’ conferences”. The process of retranslating the Mass was a headache for many bishops’ conferences, which rejected initial drafts prepared by the translating body ICEL.
What will happen next?
Those who are wary of liturgical innovations fear that the Pope may undo the work of his predecessor. Sandro Magister said the Pope sought a “demolition of one of the walls of resistance against the excesses of postconciliar liturgists”. Fr John Zuhlsdorf expressed alarm at his wdtprs.com blog. He suggested the Vatican, rather than reversing the new translation, might offer priests a choice of texts. “If they go down this road, and right now I don’t see anything preventing it, I think it might get pretty ugly,” he said.
✣The week ahead
Italy’s annual Pro-Life Day will be celebrated on Sunday. The message of the day, released by the Italian bishops’ conference last year, declares that being pro-life means joining a “civilised revolution that heals the throwaway culture, the mentality of falling birthrates and demographic collapse”, as well as defending human life from beginning to end.A mass of Thanksgiving for the apostolic nuncio will be held at Westminster Cathedral on Monday. Archbishop Antonio Mennini, who is moving to Rome to serve in the Secretariat of State, has been nuncio to Britain for six years.
A new Caritas agency will be launched in the Diocese of Shrewsbury tomorrow. The event, at Ellesmere Port Catholic High School, starts at 10am and is open to all parishioners of the diocese. Speakers include Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury, Mike Kane MP and Dr Philip McCarthy, chief executive of Catholic Social Action Network.
