Marini Delayed is... Marini Denied?

Archbishop Piero Marini's scheduled book-tour of the States has been indefinitely postponed.

With stops planned in Chicago, Boston, New York and at Notre Dame, the mid-February swing to promote the former papal MC's newly-released treatise on the liturgical reform had been highly awaited, with an unusual level of mass-media interest already piqued.

While the release has received prominent coverage in the Catholic press, including last month's London launch of A Challenging Reform (which took place in the Throne Room of the archbishops of Westminster), the book's press has also amplified Marini's critique of Summorum Pontificum -- last summer's motu proprio permitting wider celebration of the 1962 Missal. In a December interview, the archbishop told the National Catholic Reporter that he didn't "have any nostalgia for this older rite," while likening those given to said nostalgia to the ancient Israelites who, despite their liberation from Egypt, began to long for the "onions and melons" found there.

Marini served two decades as chief liturgist to John Paul II and Benedict XVI before being named in October to the presidency of the Pontifical Commission for Eucharistic Congresses.

Although a rescheduling of the US tour is being discussed for a later date (most likely November), with the official line running that the archbishop had become "concerned" about coming in the run-up to the Pope's mid-April visit, another source informed of the change reported that the cancellation was sought by Benedict's Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone SDB.

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