H.E.Msgr Piero Marini

H.E.Msgr Piero Marini is currently president of the Pontifical Committee for the International Eucharistic Congresses. He was born in 1942 at Valverde, in the province of Pavia, and was ordained a priest in 1965.

In September of that same year, he began his activity in the Roman Curia, specifically in the Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia.
Thenceforth, he continued to work in different organizations of the Holy See that coordinated the actualisation of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council. During these years of work in diverse Dicasteries, he was given various positions of responsibility. In 1970, after having obtained his license, he then obtained a degree in theology with a specialisation in liturgy from the Pontifical Liturgical Institute St. Anselmo in Rome. From the end of the 1970’s, he provided his service for the liturgical celebrations presided by the Holy Father. In 1975, he was nominated pontifical Master of Ceremonies. Msgr. Marini left this position in 1985, when he was nominated undersecretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship.

In 1981, he obtained a second degree in political science at the Libera Università degli studi sociali in Rome. He knows well French, Spanish, German and English. He has written various articles on the actualisation of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council, and has collaborated for the revision of the new Caerimoniale Episcoporum.

During the 15 years of service in the Office of Pontifical Celebrations, he was able to take part in important ecclesial events and different apostolic trips of the pontiff.
On February 24, 1987, the Holy Father John Paul II nominated him as Master of Pontifical Liturgical Ceremonies, and he held this role until 2007. During these years he promoted a renewal of the Office, as he obtained for it a juridical autonomy within the Roman Curia, a new name, new personnel and new consultants.

In the area of this renewal, the Holy Father united the Pontifical Sacristy to the Office of Celebrations in 1991, and entrusted to the Master the care of the Chapels of the Apostolic Palace (Sistine, Pauline Redemptoris Mater).

The variety and particularity of the liturgical celebrations, the riches of the typical ritual expressions of diverse cultures, purified and welcomed in the liturgies presided by the pope, are often illustrated in the presentation texts which Mgsr. Marini strived to include in the various subsidies published to favour the active participation of the clergy and the faithful.