Could the Vatican Have a New Secretary of State after Easter?

By Marco Tosatti
Vatican Insider
March 20, 2013

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/francesco-francis-francisco-curia-23418/

Cardinals attend the mass for the inauguration of Francis' pontificate

Pope Francis has confirmed – pro tempore – all heads and secretaries of Congregations “donec aliter provideatur”, until it is decided otherwise. The statement released made no mention of the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, but an explanation was issued stating that the announcement concerned him as well. Reliable Vatican sources say Pope Francis intends to choose his closest collaborator quickly, after Easter. Tarcisio Bertone will turn 79 in December and it seems only logical that he should leave the position he held as Benedict XVI’s right hand man, amid controversies and divisions.

These sources also mention an Italian member the diplomatic corps as the Argentinean Pope’s potential number two man. The current Substitute, Angelo Becciu and the Prefect of Propaganda Fide, the former nuncio Filoni, seem to be excluded as possible candidates because of their involvement in the rifts and internal struggles that have tainted Bertone’s management of the Secretariat of State. Pope Francis would apparently prefer to start with a clean slate and a new Secretary of State.

The Church is not short of possible candidates, starting with Archbishop Piero Parolin, Apostolic Nuncio to Venezuela. Archbishop Celestine Migliore, the Pope’s current ambassador in Warsaw who represented the Holy See at the UN is another potential future collaborator of the Pope. Both have close ties with the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano, who was Secretary of State under John Paul II for many years and also under Benedict XVI for a period of time, before Bertone was appointed as his substitute.

But the list goes on. In Paris there’s Mgr. Luigi Ventura (from Brescia, Italy), a follower of the Casaroli school of thought. He has a very respectable résumé, with stints in Burkina Faso, Chile, Canada and France. Then there’s Giacomo Guido Ottonello who was first Nuncio to Panama and now Ecuador, where since 2005 he has had the difficult task of mediating between the Church and an openly anti-clerical government. He has a deep knowledge of Latin America. Finally, we must not forget the former Nuncio to Brazil, Mgr. Lorenzo Baldisseri, whom Benedict XVI appointed Secretary of the Congregation for Bishops and Secretary of the College of Cardinals in the Conclave, in 2012. There are voices going round about Pope Francis wanting to create him a cardinal.

Having received the white zucchetto from him (it is the Secretary of the College of Cardinal’s job to hand this to the Pope), the newly-elected Pope apparently placed his red cardinal’s biretta on the secretary’s head. This is a tradition Pope’s have had for the last century and is not indicative of any definitive decision.

It is likely, however, that both the Substitute Secretary of State, Archbishop Angelo Becciu and the Pope’s “foreign affairs minister”, Mgr. Dominique Mamberti, will hang on to their positions for a period of time, under Francis’ reign. They will probably be substituted at a later date.