Pope Francis on February 14 met with members of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, as they gathered for their plenary assembly.
The Holy Father opened his discourse by noting that, even sixty years after the pro-mulgation of the Sacrosanctum Concilium, it is still highly relevant. It contains, the Pope said, “a precise will to reform the Church in its fundamental dimensions: to make the Christian life of the faithful grow more and more every day; to adapt the institutions subject to change better to the needs of our time; to foster that which can contribute to the union of all believers in Christ; to reinvigorate that which serves to call all to the bosom of the Church.”
This is therefore a profound work of spiritual, pastoral, ecumenical and missionary renewal, said the Pope, adding that the Council Fathers were aware that “without a liturgical reform there is no reform of the Church.”
Pope Francis then went on to explain that Church reform depends on the Church’s love for Christ, like “spousal fidelity”, to the point of being fully conformed to him.
Speaking of the role of women in the Church, Pope Francis stressed the importance of the Church itself being a woman. “That is why I said that every instance of Church reform is always a matter of spousal fidelity, because she [the Church] is a woman”, he said.
The purpose of the liturgical reform – within the broader framework of the renewal of the Church – is precisely to “bring about that formation of the faithful and promote that pastoral action which has the sacred Liturgy as its summit and its source,” the Pope said.
Francis went on to note that although liturgical formation is necessary, “it does not exclude that there is a priority in the formation of those who, by virtue of the sacrament of Orders, are called Pope to be.