The National Catholic Reporter wrote:
Vatican's top liturgical liberal steps down
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York
In a noteworthy change of personnel, if not of surname, the Vatican announced today that Monsignor Guido Marini will replace Archbishop Piero Marini as the pope’s Master of Ceremonies, meaning the official in charge of how the pope celebrates the Mass and the other rites of the church.
The outgoing Marini was long seen as a more permissive counterpart to the strong traditionalism at the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Vatican’s policy-setting agency on liturgical matters. Experts have noted the irony that large-scale papal liturgies organized on Marini’s watch are sometimes more innovative than a strict reading of official policy might permit.
The new Marini, according to Italian observers, does not bring a sharply defined ideological profile into his new position. Though he served as the master of ceremonies in the Genoa archdiocese for both Cardinals Dionigi Tettamanzi and Tarcisio Bertone (today the Vatican’s Secretary of State), Guido Marini, 42, has an academic background in canon law and spirituality rather than liturgy.
Sources close to Piero Marini said ... that the timing of Marini’s departure may be linked to the recent decision by Pope Benedict XVI to liberalize permission for the Latin Mass in use prior to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Although Marini never took a public position on the move, it’s widely known that he has expressed reservations in private. Since it is taken for granted in Rome that Benedict XVI will himself celebrate a Mass according to the old rite in St. Peter’s Basilica sometime soon, today’s announcement may have been a way to avoid putting Marini in an awkward position when the times comes.
One hallmark of Marini’s liturgical outlook is an openness to inculturation, or allowing the ritual practice of the church to he shaped by local cultures. That’s something Marini said in a 2003 interview that was lacking in the pre-Vatican II Mass.“It was the liturgical expression of the countries of the Mediterranean Basin,” he said. “With the separation of the Protestants, also in France, what remained was Spain, Italy, Austria … the church had been reduced to something relatively small. But with the New World, Latin America and the various missions in Africa and Asia, it was necessary to open this liturgy that had been closed to the new peoples. That happened with the Second Vatican Council and with the trips of the pope.”
One illustrative flashpoint is liturgical dance. The Congregation for Divine Worship officially frowns on dance in the liturgy. In 1975 it issued a document titled Dance in the Liturgy, which concluded, “[Dance] cannot be introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatever. That would be to inject into the liturgy one of the most desacralized and desacralizing elements; and so it would be equivalent to creating an atmosphere of profaneness which would easily recall to those present and to the participants in the celebration worldly places and situations.”
In 1998, the congregation wrote to the bishop of Honolulu to ban the use of hula dancing in any liturgical context, a custom that had become common among Catholics in Hawaii. Yet when John Paul visited Brussels in 1995 for the beatification of Father Damien DeVeuster, the famous saint of the Hawaiian lepers, a hula dance was performed smack in the middle of the ceremony.
For those who know Marini’s style, it was hardly a surprise. Anyone who has ever attended a major papal liturgy, such as a World Youth Day Mass or a major canonization Mass, has seen enough dance to remind them of Broadway production numbers. During the World Youth Day Mass in Rome in the summer of 2000, for example, a troupe of young dancers bearing flags with different colors representing the different continents was one of the highlights of the event.
In Mexico in 2002 when John Paul II canonized Juan Diego, native Aztec dancers gyrated down a walkway towards the pope in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe as native music blared forth. The next day, when the pope beatified a pair of Mayan martyrs in the same spot, another native song-and-dance routine was performed. This time there was the further twist of a limpia, or purification, ceremony. The Indian blessing is believed to cure spiritual and physical ailments by driving off evil spirits. Indian women bearing smoking pots of incense brushed herbs on the pontiff, Mexico City Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera and other prelates as the dancing unfolded.
In effect, these indigenous dancers exorcized the pope. Although the choice generated controversy both in Mexico and in Rome, Marini defended the use of such an indigenous ritual within a Catholic framework.
“We discussed it a great deal here in this office with the responsible parties from the local church,” Marini said in 2003. “I spoke with the bishop. At the beginning, I have to say I was against using this rite, which not even they seemed to understand very well. Obviously our penitential act is one thing, their expression is another. But we continued talking, and in the end this was not during the Eucharistic celebration, and the bishop wanted the rite at any cost.”
“It was important as a sign of respect for the indigenous, but it’s also a matter of liturgical history,” Marini said. “Often rites that were not originally Christian have been ‘Christianized.’ If the indigenous have this rite, it can with time take on a Christian meaning concerning the purification of sins. Just as we use holy water, which for us recalls the waters of baptism, forgiveness of sins and the resurrection, so for them this element of smoke can have a sense of liberation and forgiveness. This is the reason for which we at the end agreed to insert this element.”
The following is taken from an interview given by the new Papal MC to the Italian online magazine "Petrus":
Monsignore, zuerst herzlich willkommen, und alles Gute.
Msgr. Marini: Herzlichen Dank für die guten Wünsche - ich kann sie brauchen. Sie wissen ja, ich bin erst seit ganz kurzem in Rom, ich schaue mich um, ich lerne, ich denke: Es ist so viel zu tun, schwer zu arbeiten, das können Sie mir glauben.
So kommen wir also von dem einen Marini zu dem anderen - was sagen sie zu Piero, Ihrem Vorgänger?
Msgr. Marini: Ich danke ihm von Herzen. Er hat der Kirche viel gegeben, er hat zwei Päpsten gedient, und ich stehe erst am Anfang meines Weges.
Sie haben eine schwere Aufgabe übernommen...
Msgr. Marini: Ganz bestimmt. Das Leben jedes Zeremonienmeisters des Heiligen Vaters ist voller Probleme. Wir stehen im Rampenlicht, wir können uns nicht den Luxius erlauben, große Fehler zu machen.
Viele haben gesagt, daß Sie hierhin berufen worden sind, weil Sie liturgisch traditioneller und nüchterner sind als Erzbischof Piero Marini. Was ist denn Ihre Vorstellung von der Liturgie?
Man sagt, daß die Liturgie in Genua, wo sie bisher tätig waren, sehr gepflegt wird, nüchtern, aber elegant, ohne bizarre Ausschmückungen...
Msgr. Marini: Aber das ist doch das Wesen der Liturgie. Ich wiederholde das: Niemand kann gegen das Gesetz der Liturgie der Kirche handeln. Die Messe ist ein Geschenk, eine Gnade, keine Vorstellung. Daher: keine Erfindung, sondern vollständige Achtung vor den liturgischen Regeln.
Papst Benedikt XVI ist nicht nur ein großer Theologe, sondern auch ein Liturgiker von Rang. Er schreibt der korrekt ausgeführten Liturgie eine vornehme Signifikanz zu...
Msgr. Marini: Mit dem hl. Vater zusammenzuarbeiten ist für mich ein Geschenk. Die Volkstümlichkeit des Papstes, seine Predigt von Wahrheit und Mut sind für alle sichtbar. In Bezug auf die Lturgie stimme ich voll mit der Hauptaussage des Papstes überein: Die Messe ist ein Opfer.
Gibt es ihrer Meinung nach auch in der jüngeren Zeit liturgische Mißbräuche?
Msgr. Marini: Sie wissen ja - die Kirche ist groß. Aber wie der Papst selbst in seinem Begleitbrief zu „Summorum Pontificum“ anerkannt hat, hat es Mißbräuche und extravagante Interpretationen gegeben. Was ich mit Sicherheit sagen kann, ist, daß ich nicht der Urheber irgendwelcher Machwerke sein werde. Ich werde mich darauf beschränken, die bestehenden Regeln gewissenhaft anzuwenden.
Bei der Gelegenheit: Was halten Sie von dem Motu Proprio, mit dem der Papst die Messe im tridentinischen Ritus freigegeben hat?
Msgr. Marini: Ich stimme dem Motu Proprio hundertprozentig zu. Es ist ein Akt der Vernunft, der Gerechtigkeit, der Liberalität und der Fürsorge.
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