Exit Bertone, Enter Parolin

By Andrea Tornielli
Vatican Insider
August 30, 2013

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/curiacuriacuria-27475/

CARDINAL BERTONE'S EXIT WAS IMMINENT

Pope Francis accepted the resignation presented not so long ago by the current Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and has decided to replace him with the Apostolic Nuncio to Venezuela, Archbishop Pietro Parolin.

The new Vatican “prime minister” is 58 years old and hails from Schiavon, a town in the northern Italian province of Vicenza. A priest since 1980, he entered the Vatican diplomatic corps in 1986 and in 2002 was appointed under-secretary of the Secretariat of State’s section for Relations with States (the Vatican equivalent of a deputy foreign affairs minister). In the Secretariat of State, he worked first with Cardinal Sodano and then with Bertone. In September 2009, Benedict XVI, who had nominated Parolin Nuncio to Venezuela about a week earlier, co-ordained him bishop with Bertone and others.

The outgoing Secretary of State leaves his position just before his 79th birthday, as his predecessor Cardinal Angelo Sodano, currently Dean of the College of Cardinals, did. Tarcisio Bertone, a Salesian, had been Archbishop of Geneva up until then and was chosen by Benedict XVI as Secretary of State in 2006, a year after Ratzinger was elected Pope. Strangely, Bertone’s nomination was announced in June but he took up his post in September: the Vatican’s new “prime minister” found himself having to deal with a crisis sparked by the interpretation of Benedict XVI’s controversial speech in Regensburg.

The choice of a prelate who did not come from the Vatican’s diplomatic ranks – this was not a first for the Church – stemmed from Ratzingerr’s close acquaintance and collaboration with Bertone, which was consolidated between 1995 and 2002, when Bertone was Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Joseph Ratzinger.

The former head of the Congregation was impressed by how Bertone worked and by his loyalty. This is why he chose him and defended him right to the end, despite opposition from various members of the Curia. Benedict XVI even rejected requests and suggestions made by cardinals in recent years to have him replaced.

Bertone – who is still Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church and for now retains his place in the Vatican Bank’s supervisory council – had known about his substitution at the end of the summer for a while. Looking at recent precedents, it is easy to see how Bertone’s replacement, which is partly to do with his age, has come so quickly. In October 1958 John XXIII chose the Secretary of State the very evening of his election, but the position had been empty since 1944. It had remained empty since the death of Cardinal Luigi Maglione and Pope Pius XII had not replaced him, choosing instead to use Montini and Tardini, the two substitutes. In June 1963 Paul VI decided to keep his predecessor’s Secretary of State, the 80 year old Cardinal Amleto Cicognani for another six years. John Paul I and John Paul II both kept French cardinal Jean Villot as Secretary of State, although Wojtyla did write that a non-Italian Pope should have an Italian Secretary of State. Villot, who is still the only Vatican Secretary of State to have served under three Popes, died in March 1979 and was replaced by Agostino Casaroli.

Wojtyla accepted Casaroli’s resignation when the figure who symbolised Ostpolitik, turned 76. Angelo Sodano became Secretary of State, a position he kept during Benedict XVI’s pontificate for almost a year and a half (from April 2005 to September 2006).

Readers will recall that in an interview last July, the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, had complained about the fact that the Secretary of State had not yet been replaced, despite all the criticisms he had received during the pre-Conclave meetings. “I would expect that after the summer lull, we'll see some more signs of management changes,” the American prelate remarked, having previously said he expected a substitution before the summer break, as many others had wrongly predicted.