Vatican Diary / Another Venetian at the Top, after More Than Three Centuries

By Matthew Sherry
The Chiesa
September 2, 2013

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350587?eng=y


Similarities and differences between the only two Venetian secretaries of state in history: Pietro Parolin and the cardinal nephew of Alexander VIII. Both at the center of proposals of reform of the curia, but on opposite banks

VATICAN CITY, September 2, 2013 – In commenting on the announcement of the appointment of Archbishop Pietro Parolin as the new Vatican secretary of state, almost no one has noted that this is a matter of the first Venetian to occupy the important position for more than three centuries.

And yet the analogy with the present is of a certain interest.

The first, and until now the last, churchman of the Italian northeast to become the closest collaborator of the bishop of Rome in the governance of the universal Church was in fact Giambattista (or Giovanni Battista) Rubini, born in Venice in 1642 and secretary of state from October of 1689 to the summer of 1691. Rubini was also bishop of Vicenza, Parolin's diocese of origin, from 1684 to 1702.

But the analogy with the present seems to end here, limiting itself to the purely geographical aspect.

Rubini, in fact, was appointed secretary of state, and made a cardinal, by Alexander VIII - whose secular name was Pietro Ottoboni - who promoted him immediately after being elected pontiff on October 6, 1689, in conclave. Well then, Alexander VIII - a Venetian himself, born in Venice to Marco and Vittoria Tornielli - was the brother of Cristina Ottoboni, the grandmother (or mother according to other sources) of Rubini.

In short, this is a classic case of nepotism.

"The pontificate of Alexander VIII," writes the Enciclopedia dei Papi published by Treccani," saw a vigorous rebirth of nepotism. It is even possible to affirm that Alexander VIII was the last great nepotist pontiff.”

But Rubini kept the prestigious position for just two years. Precisely the duration of the pontificate of his uncle, who died on February 1, 1691. The successor Innocent XII, Antonio Pignatelli of Puglia, elected the following July 12, immediately replaced him with the Roman cardinal Fabrizio Spada.

Innocent XII took up an implacable fight against nepotism, culminating in the bull 'Romanum decet pontificem' of June 22, 1692, a fight also conducted - again as stated in Treccani - with the intention “of defending the honor of the Roman curia, eliminating at the root those abuses which most easily could give weight to anti-Catholic and anti-Roman polemics.”

Returning to our day, therefore, if there is in the facts the geographical analogy between the only two Venetian secretaries of state in history, the other may perhaps be stronger that links, under the banner of a widely sought reform of the curia, the pope named Francis who today calls to his side the vicentino Parolin with the distant predecessor Innocent XII, who instead immediately unburdened himself of the bishop of Vicenza whom he had inherited as secretary of state.