Ohio-Born Benedictine Appointed Vice President
VATICAN CITY, MAY 8, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI named U.S.-born Benedictine Father Christopher Zielinski to the commission which oversees the protection of the Church's artistic and cultural patrimony.
Father Zielinski was named vice president of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church and vice president of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology.
Since 2003, he has been the abbot at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Pecos, New Mexico.
The president of the two commissions, Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, was named secretary of the Congregation for Clergy on Monday. He will maintain "ad interim" his presidencies.
Michael John Zielinski was born in 1953 in Lakewood, Ohio. He entered the Benedictine monastery and after his novitiate in Florence, Italy, he made his temporary vows in 1972, taking the name Christopher Mary. He made his final vows in 1975 and was ordained a priest two years later.
Father Zielinski dedicated himself to the study of monastic spirituality, as well as Gregorian, symphonic, and modern music, medieval and Renaissance history, and art history.
In 1993, he founded the Genesis Center -- an intercultural, interdisciplinary and interreligious center for a new humanism -- to study cultural and social themes of a religious nature and the phenomena of new religious expressions.
The Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church presides over the guardianship of the historical and artistic patrimony of the entire Church (works of art, historical documents, books and everything kept in museums, libraries and archives); and collaborates in the conservation of this patrimony with the individual Churches and their respective episcopal organizations.
Code: ZE07050801
Date: 2007-05-08