Bishop Rey reflects on Pope’s liturgy, evangelization connection

Vatican City, Apr 29, 2013 / 07:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis understands the important role the liturgy plays in the New Evangelization and combines it with his own style to communicate the grace of God, says Bishop Dominique Rey.

“I think each Pope arrives at his own charism, his own personality. And the personality of Pope Francis is a sense of freedom, simplicity, (an awareness) of context,” Bishop Rey observed in an April 23 interview with CNA.

And the way the faith is conveyed during the liturgy, he said, “is very important.”

Pope Francis, he noted, “speaks each day in the homily, for all the services of the Vatican, and he develops a very strong and simple homily.

“I think many persons are touched by these thoughts, and many persons receive the Holy Father and his teaching as the grace of God,” he said.

Bishop Rey, who heads the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in France, came to Rome last week to prepare for the June 25-28 summit on the Sacred Liturgy and the New Evangelization, which will be held at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.

The international gathering is intended to underscore the “central place” of the liturgy in “the mission of the Church,” he said, adding that the “source and the goal of the New Evangelization is the adoration and the contemplation of God.”

The conference will feature talks on celebrating the Mass in both the ordinary and extraordinary form, which will be given by Cardinals Antonio Cañizares Llovera and Walter Brandmüller, respectively.

Other liturgy-related topics that will be addressed include, sacred architecture, music, new ecclesial movements, academic formation, catechesis, the bishop’s role as guardian of the liturgy, and liturgical law in the Church’s mission.

As for Pope Francis, Bishop Rey thinks his reflections and Magisterium enter into “the traditional sense of the liturgy; there is no change.”

For more information on the conference, please visit http://sacraliturgia2013.com.

Alan Holdren contributed to this report from Rome.