Fr Andrew Wadsworth to ICEL

Fr Andrew Wadsworth has been appointed by the Holy See as General Secretary of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy and Executive Director of the ICEL Secretariat in Washington DC, to take up post from September 2009. This is very good news. Fr Wadsworth has taken a leading role in England in promoting the worthy celebration of the liturgy in both the usus recentior and the usus antiquior. With regard to the latter, he played a leading role in the two highly successful training conferences for clergy at Merton College, Oxford.

Fr Wadsworth (47) is a priest of the Archdiocese of Westminster, ordained in 1990. He has Masters degrees in Italian and Theology, and is an accomplished musician. He has taught Latin, Greek and Italian as well as fulfilling various pastoral responsibilities, including parish work and hospital chaplaincy. He has most recently been Catholic Chaplain at Harrow School as well as teaching Italian there. As well has having good Latin and Greek, Fr Wadsworth speaks Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and some German.

Now that the new translation of the Missale Romanum is almost complete, ICEL will be moving on to new translation projects (for example, the texts for the other sacraments) and will continue to work in accord with Liturgiam Authenticam. It is good to know that Fr Wadsworth will be involved with this work.

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