Pope names Archbishop Gomez to advise Vatican office

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI named U.S. Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles a member of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and U.S. Benedictine Abbot Christopher M. Zielinski to help manage the staff of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.

The Vatican announced the appointments Nov. 24.

Archbishop Gomez, 60, who was born in Monterrey, Mexico, is also a member of the Synod of Bishops' special council for the Americas and an adviser to the Congregation for Bishops' Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

Archbishop Gomez is the third council member from the U.S. and Canada. Others are Cardinals Timothy M. Dolan of New York and Thomas C. Collins of Toronto.

Consultors or advisers to the council include Tony Spence, director and editor in chief of Catholic News Service; Greg Erlandson, president and publisher of Our Sunday Visitor; Carl A. Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus; and Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, CEO of Salt and Light Television.

Abbot Zielinski, a native of Ohio, was appointed to be one of three chiefs of staff in the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, where he already served as an adviser.

The Benedictine also serves as vice president of both the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church and the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archeology. He is a member of the Congregation for Clergy's special commission handling cases of dispensation from the obligations of the priesthood and deaconate.

The abbot was head of the Benedictine Abbey of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Pecos, N.M., from 2003 to 2007. He has degrees in philosophy, theology and social psychology, and studied Gregorian, polyphonic and modern music as well as art history.

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments recently established an office to promote the development and use of appropriate liturgical art, architecture and music for Mass and other formal moments of prayer.

Abbot Zielinski has called the Tridentine Mass "the missing link" between tradition and post-Vatican II liturgical reform.

In a 2007 interview, he said that the Tridentine Mass can promote "a recovery of the sacrificial nature of the Mass" and help renew reverence, a sense of mystery and appreciation of the sacramental character of the liturgy.