VATICAN CITY (CNS) Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the resignation of Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments and has named Spanish Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera of Toledo to succeed him. Announcing the changes Dec. 9, the Vatican said Cardinal Arinze was retiring after six years as head of the congregation and a total of 23 years at the Vatican; he celebrated his 76th birthday Nov. 1 and the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood Nov. 23.
Cardinal Canizares, 63, is a specialist in catechesis and has served as a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 1995 when the office was headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict. He also is a member of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei," which oversees the pastoral care of Catholics attached to the use of the Tridentine-rite Mass.
Born in Utiel, Spain, Oct. 15, 1945, Cardinal Canizares was ordained in 1970 after studying at the seminary in Valencia and earning a doctorate in theology with an emphasis on catechesis from the Pontifical University of Salamanca. He taught at the university for many years and founded the Spanish Catechists Association.
Appointed bishop of Avila in March 1992, he drafted documents for the Spanish bishops’ conference on subjects ranging from ecclesiology and the sacraments to sexual and medical ethics. He was named archbishop of Granada in December 1996 and was transferred to Toledo six years later. From 2005 until earlier this year, he served as vice president of the Spanish bishops’ conference.
Pope Benedict named him a cardinal in 2006.
Cardinal Arinze was the last active Vatican official to have participated in the Second Vatican Council as a bishop; Pope Benedict attended, but as a theological expert.
In a 2002 interview with Catholic News Service marking the 40th anniversary of the council’s opening, Cardinal Arinze said he attended the last session of the council as the coadjutor archbishop of Onitsha, Nigeria, and celebrated his 33rd birthday during the 1965 fall session.
"I was just a young priest made bishop two weeks before the last session of Vatican II," he told CNS. "One bishop asked me if I was a seminarian," he said.
Cardinal Arinze, who had been president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue for 17 years, took over the reins at the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments in 2002, just a few months after Pope John Paul II promulgated the third Latin edition of the Roman Missal, the text of prayers used at Mass. It fell to Cardinal Arinze to oversee the ongoing efforts of national bishops’ conferences to translate the Latin texts into their local languages.
Presenting a 2004 document addressing abuses found in the liturgy, Cardinal Arinze told reporters, "No one should be surprised that over the course of time the holy church, our mother, has developed words, actions and, therefore, directives regarding this supreme act of worship. The eucharistic norms were elaborated to express and safeguard the eucharistic mystery and, even more, to demonstrate that it is the church which celebrates this august sacrifice and sacrament."
