Thursday, July 05, 2012

Secretaries of the CDW


Sandro Magister has some interesting background on the recent history of the Secretaries of the CDW.
He ends:
It is a change that could represent the same problems as the previous ones. In fact, the incoming English bishop Roche, 62, is a protégé of the cardinal emeritus of Westminster, the "liberal" Cormac Murphy O’Connor, whose auxiliary he was as well. And already in the past, with great preoccupation in the more conservative circles of the Roman curia, his name had been circulated for the office he has now obtained. But it must be said that the firm manner in which Roche, as president of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy from 2003 until 2012, defended the new translation of the missal in English, composed under the banner of greater actual fidelity to the Latin "editio typica," won him the hostility of the more progressive component of the Anglophone episcopate. When he arrives in Rome, Roche, who studied spiritual theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in the early 1990's, will have an opportunity to make his stance known more clearly. It will be interesting, for example, to see how he deals with the congregation's task of giving its own "recognitio," the green light after a revision, to the Italian translation of the missal, which, in the version approved by the bishops of the CEI, strays farther from the original Latin than the one in English does. Without counting, obviously, that it will also be curious to verify if – after the four failed attempts of Tamburrino, Sorrentino, Ranjith and Di Noia – Roche will finally succeed in bringing his own five-year term to its conclusion.
One of the important things that Bishop Roche might well bring to the CDW are efficient administrative skills, which apparently are lacking at the moment. I know that there have been criticisms of aspects of his leadership in Leeds but I think that it should be remember has been two full-time jobs: Bishop of Leeds and both overseeing but also fighting for the new translations. A Roman friend described the present Prefect as, "very kind, very intelligent, very learned, very Spanish and not very good with a diary".

2 comments:

IanW said...

My own observation of his managerial and administrative abilities does not fill me with optimism, I'm afraid. ++Arthur was ultimately responsible for England and Wales' Liturgy Office, which has long been poorly managed, incompetent and home to ideas and practices that are not exactly in tune with the Holy Father's guidance (it is to be hoped that its new Secretary will address these issues).

Robert said...

I still thinks +Roche looks like Robert Hardy (Siegfried). He He!!.

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