Republished from “Inside the Vatican”, May 2000.
VATICAN CITY, April 13: John Paul II has accepted
the resignation of Cardinal Angelo Felici as president of the Pontifical
Commission Ecclesia Dei and
appointed Dario Cardinal Castrillon,
Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy, as the Commission’s new
president. The appointment was
announced today.
Cardinal Castrillon, 70, succeeds Cardinal Felici, 80, who
suffered a severe fall several months ago which required hospitalisation and an
operation.
It is not immediately clear what impact the new appointment
may have on the Commission’s direction, but there seems little doubt that
Cardinal Castrillon, who is widely respected in the curia, and sometimes
mentioned as a papabile (a qualified candidate for the papacy in the
event of a conclave), is capable, because of his relative youth and good health,
to take a more decisive action than his predecessor.
Thus, there could be new developments soon in the area of liturgy and in
dialogue with the followers of Lefebvre.
The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei was
established in 1988 by Pope Wojtyla following Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s
decision on June 30 to consecrate four bishops without Rome’s approval.
In Canon Law, such an action means automatic excommunication.
Lefebvre (1905-1991), a native Frenchman, was Archbishop of
Dakar, Senegal, and attended sessions of Vatican Council II.
After resigning from the Tulle episcopal see in 1970, he founded a
seminary in Econe, Switzerland, which rejected the liturgical renewal introduced
after the Council. His first break with Rome occurred under Paul VI in 1976,
when he ordained 13 priests without the Holy see’s permission (the seminary
where they trained originally depended on the Holy See).
As a result, he was suspended from his ministerial functions.
Lefebvre founded the Society of St. Pius X in 1979.
The Society took on the direction of the Econe seminary , and others in
other countries, without Rome’s approval.
Priestly communities, men’s and women’s monasteries, and schools were
also established.
Aware of many Catholic’s attachment to the pre-Vatican II
liturgy, in 1984 the Holy See established the possibility that, under certain
condition (among them the approval of the local bishop), the Mass could be
celebrated according to the Tridentine rite of St. Pius V.
In 1986, Lefebvre denounced the “incommensurable and unprecedented” visit of John Paul II to the synagogue in Rome. A year later, he condemned even more severely the meeting the Pope convoked in Assisi, when great leaders of the world’s religions gathered to pray for peace.
