Cardinal Arinze
According to the Vatican Information Service, of 1 October 2002:
"The Holy Father ...
- Accepted the resignation from the office of prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of Sacraments presented by Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez. He appointed at the same time Cardinal Francis Arinze, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, as president of same congregation.
- Appointed Bishop Michael Louis Fitzgerald, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, as president of the same council, elevating him at the same time to the dignity of archbishop."
The day before they reported:
"On Saturday September 29 it was made public that the Holy Father appointed Cardinal Francis Arinze, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter- religious Dialogue, as his special envoy to the celebrations of the Third National Eucharistic Congress which will take place in Ibadan, Nigeria from November 15 - 17, 2002."
National Catholic Register of 27 May 2001 had an interview with Father Peter Stravinskas about liturgical translations:
"... I think that we can't underestimate how much damage has been done at a practical level by having such translations.
Cardinal Arinze and I were having a discussion about this a couple of years ago. And I said some of this stuff would be humorous if it wasn't so sad. You take a simple line in the Creed like visibilium et invisibilium. A first year Latin student knows that that's visible and invisible.
What does ICEL say? "Seen and unseen."
Well there's a world of difference between the two. I said to Cardinal Arinze, "let me give you an example. If I hid under the table I'm unseen, but I'm not invisible."
He howled with laughter. He has said since then that every time he says Mass in English he finds himself smirking at that point in the Mass."
Jonathon Kwitny wrote in his biography of John Paul II about Bishop Arinze receiving the news that Cardinal Wojtyla had been elected as Pope:
"... Bishop Francis Arinze of Enugu, Nigeria, was in Belfast, Ireland, delivering a series of lectures at the behest of the Irish Missionary Union. He was a valuable fund-raiser -- learned, articulate, and African; he filled auditoriums. Arinze was in midlecture at a secondary school when a priest interrupted him with the news. He paused, reflecting on his encounters with Wojtyla at the international Synod of Bishops, a new papal advisory body to which both men had been elected by their peers.
"We are going to have order in the Church," Arinze told his audience. ..." (Jonathan Kwitny, Man of the Century, Warner Books, 1998, page 11).
Time will tell if we are going to have order in the liturgy. But I think this is an encouraging development.
Copyright J.R. Lilburne, 2 October 2002. Updated 23 December 2002, 23 June 2003, 5 October 2003, 3 November 2003, 28 April 2004.
Other sites:
23 April 2004 Introduction to Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum
Address of 8 October 2003 at
fdlc.org
Liturgy questions and answers, adoremus.org
Speech of 17 May 2003 at Georgetown University
Report 23 December 2002:
cathnews.com "Cardinal Arinze criticises priests who meddle with the Mass"
Other Sites:
zenit.org Portrait of Cardinal Arinze
Father Peter Stravinskas "New Liturgy Document Vindicates Critics"