A Priest Life ((((,,)))): NEWS “A path of balance has not been pursued”: What the appointment of an Italian Musical Liturgist as Undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops could signify

Friday, November 13, 2026

NEWS “A path of balance has not been pursued”: What the appointment of an Italian Musical Liturgist as Undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops could signify

“We should ask ourselves whether all this hasn’t actually led to a secularization of the liturgy, distancing itself, without careful discernment, from what came before.”

15 HOURS AGO

On Friday, October 30th, Pope Leo XIV appointed Father Giacomo Costa, S.J. & Sister Elena Massimi, F.M.A. as Undersecretaries of the Synod of Bishops. With these double appointments, the Holy Father replaces Sister Nathalie Becquart as the remaining Synod Undersecretary while at the same time filling the spot he left vacant by his March 2026 appointment of the Spanish Augustinian Archbishop Luis Marín de San Martín, O.S.A. as Prefect for the Dicastery for the Service of Charity & Papal Almoner.

Photo by Tomasz Zielonka on Unsplash

At the time of this writing, no new assignment has been announced for Sister Becquart. Father Costa, S.J. has been known in the world of the Synod of Bishops for years, & generally considered a solid pair of hands. The Jesuit priest, who until today was a consultor to the Synod’s General Secretariat, served as special Secretary for the Synods on Youth in 2018 & on Syndodality from 2021 to 2024 respectively. He was also the front man for the Ecclesiastical Meeting on Amoris Laetitia earlier this month.

But the name of Sister Elena Massimi, while not known to many in the world of synoding, should at the very least be passively familiar & known to those who run in liturgical music circles. And, as such, is both an intriguing surprise of Leo & could be a possible indication of his next moves.

The author of several books on the post-conciliar liturgical reform, Sister Elena is a member of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco, professing final vows in 2009. According to the Bollettino, she is currently a professor of liturgy at the Pontifical Salesian University & “was awarded a doctorate in sacred theology, with a liturgical-pastoral specialization [from] the ‘Santa Giustina’ Institute of Pastoral Liturgy in Padua, part of the Faculty of Theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Anselm in Rome.” She is also President of the Italian Association of Professors and Scholars of Liturgy, a post she was elected to in 2022.

According to the press release by her Order at the time of her election as President of the APL, the purpose of the Association “is to promote, update, and qualify the study and teaching of the Liturgy in theological Faculties, in Religious Seminaries and Studentates or in other Institutes of Religious Sciences, according to the spirit of Sacrosanctum Concilium 16 and Optatam Totius 16 and the norms of the Ratio Studiorum for Seminaries. It also intends to collaborate, in its specific field, in the promotion of liturgical life in the Italian Church and favor the formation of the clergy in the liturgical field.”