Papal Appointment for Rector Major

Papal Appointment
for Rector Major

The following news story was carried by ANS, the SDBs' international news agency, this morning (May 19):

Holy Father appoints Fr. Pascual Chavez a consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization
(ANS –Vatican City) – On May 19 the Holy Father appointed new consulters for the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization. Among them is Fr. Pascual Chavez Villanueva, Rector Major of the Salesians.

With Fr. Chavez, who is president of the Union of Superiors General, are Msgr. Fernando Ocariz (Spain), vicar general of the personal prelature of Opus Dei; Fr. Julian Carron (Spain), president of Communion and Liberation; Fr. François-Xavier Dumortier, S.J. (France), rector magnificus of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome; Fr. Pierangelo Sequeri (Italy), vice president and lecturer in fundamental theology at the Theological School of Northern Italy; Sr. Sara Butler (United States of America) of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity, lecturer in dogmatic theology at the St. Mary of the Lake University in Chicago; Sr. Mary Lou Wirtz, F.C.J.M. (United States of America), superior general of the Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, president of the International Union of Female Superiors General. Also on the list are the lay people Dr. Chiara Amirante (Italy), founder and leader of the New Horizons Association; Mr. Kiko Arguello (Spain), leader of the international team of the Neo-Catechumenal Way; Prof. Lucetta Scaraffia (Italy), lecturer in history at the School of Literature and Philosophy at La Sapienza University in Rome.

The Pontifical Council, was established on June 28, 2010, by Benedict XVI. Its “principal task will be to promote a renewed evangelization in the countries where the first proclamation of the faith has already resonated and where Churches with an ancient foundation exist but are experiencing the progressive secularization of society and a sort of ‘eclipse of the sense of God,’ which pose a challenge to finding appropriate to propose anew the perennial truth of Christ’s Gospel.”

On the following June 30 Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella was appointed president of the new pontifical council. On October 12, 2010, the motu proprio “Ubicumque et Semper” was published, by which the Roman Pontiff established the department and named its members.