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CUA to establish Hispanic ministry chair in honor of Cardinal Seán O’Malley 

July 4, 2024 Catholic News Agency 0
Dr. Peter Kilpatrick, president of The Catholic University, of America and Cardinal Sean O’Malley. / Credit: The Catholic University of America

CNA Staff, Jul 4, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The president of The Catholic University of America (CUA), Peter Kilpatrick, announced the creation of an endowed chair in honor of Cardinal Seán O’Malley, archbishop of Boston, who is also a member of CUA’s board of trustees and an alumnus.

The endowed chair, to be named the Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley Endowed Chair for Hispanic Ministry and Evangelization, will reside in the university’s School of Theology and Religious Studies.

“This endowed position is an expression of gratitude for the cardinal’s robust contributions to the university and reflects his decades of leadership in Hispanic and Latino ministry,” Kilpatrick wrote in a letter to the university community.

Highlighting O’Malley’s service to Hispanics in the Church, Kilpatrick referenced O’Malley’s service as executive director of the Centro Católico Hispano in the Archdiocese of Washington and work as episcopal vicar for the Hispanic, Portuguese, and Haitian communities in the late 1970s.

“That love and dedication to Hispanic and Latino communities has remained an extraordinary example for the Church in America,” Kilpatrick wrote.

“We are confident that this chair, once fully funded and established, will have a lasting impact on the scholastic excellence of our School of Theology and Religious Studies,” he continued. 

“We also believe it will generate greater evangelical fervor and pastoral expertise in the care of the Hispanic and Latino Catholic communities in the United States for generations to come,” he added. 

The announcement comes on the heels of O’Malley’s milestone 80th birthday on June 29. O’Malley voted in the 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis, but his 80th birthday now marks his loss of voting power in any future conclave. 

Cardinals must be under 80 to vote in a conclave, meaning that the U.S. has lost one of its 10 cardinal-electors. 

O’Malley attended CUA as a Capuchin seminarian in the late 1960s, where he earned a master’s degree in religious education and a doctorate in Spanish and Portuguese literature. O’Malley later taught at CUA for several years and is a former chairman of the university’s board of trustees.

Often standing out with his brown habit of a Capuchin paired with the red hat of a cardinal, O’Malley was made a cardinal in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI and has been archbishop of Boston since 2003.

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The Dispatch

British lords, celebrities call on Vatican to preserve ‘treasure’ of Latin Mass

July 3, 2024 Catholic News Agency 15
British media executive Sir Nicholas Coleridge, journalist Fraser Nelson, classical pianist Dame Mitsuko Uchida, author Tom Holland, and human rights advocate Bianca Jagger in a July 2, 2024, letter in the London newspaper The Times called upon the Holy See to preserve what they describe as the “magnificent” cultural artifact of the Catholic Church’s Traditional Latin Mass. / Credit: ANDREW MATTHEWS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images; David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Spectator Life; Ian Nicholson/WPA Pool/Getty Images; David Levenson/Getty Images; and Dave Benett/Getty Images for Harry’s Bar

CNA Staff, Jul 3, 2024 / 12:45 pm (CNA).

A distinguished cadre of British public figures is calling upon the Holy See to preserve what they describe as the “magnificent” cultural artifact of the Catholic Church’s Traditional Latin Mass.

In 2021 Pope Francis placed sweeping restrictions on the celebration of Mass using the 1962 Roman Missal, known also as the extraordinary form of the Roman rite and the Tridentine Mass. Rumors have circulated in recent months that the Vatican is preparing to clamp down further on the celebration of that ancient liturgy.

No new directives on the Latin Mass have yet been promulgated amid the rumors. In a Tuesday letter to the London newspaper the Times, meanwhile, a wide cross-section of English cultural fixtures openly implored the Vatican to refrain from restricting the rite further.

“Recently there have been worrying reports from Rome that the Latin Mass is to be banished from nearly every Catholic church,” the letter said. “This is a painful and confusing prospect, especially for the growing number of young Catholics whose faith has been nurtured by it.”

The signatories, which included actress and human rights advocate Bianca Jagger, author Tom Holland, musical eminence Julian Lloyd Webber, and media executive Sir Nicholas Coleridge, described the Latin Mass as a “cathedral” of “text and gesture” that developed over many centuries.

“Not everyone appreciates its value and that is fine,” the writers said, “but to destroy it seems an unnecessary and insensitive act in a world where history can all too easily slip away forgotten.”

“The old rite’s ability to encourage silence and contemplation is a treasure not easily replicated, and, when gone, impossible to reconstruct,” they said.

The writers in their letter pointed to a 1971 petition from a similar cross-section of prominent Britons that had also asked the Vatican to preserve the Latin Mass in England.

That petition led to the “Agatha Christie indult” allowing the extraordinary form to continue there; the indult was named after the famous author who was among the signatories.

In their letter this week the British celebrities said their petition, like the 1971 request, was “entirely ecumenical and nonpolitical.”

“The signatories include Catholics and non-Catholics, believers and nonbelievers,” they wrote. “We implore the Holy See to reconsider any further restriction of access to this magnificent spiritual and cultural heritage.”

In issuing the 2021 guidelines, the pope had said he was saddened that the celebration of the extraordinary form was now characterized by a rejection of the Second Vatican Council and its liturgical reforms.

To doubt the council, he said at the time, is “to doubt the Holy Spirit himself who guides the Church.”

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