UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald
By FR MARK DREW on Friday, 3 October 2014
There is a story that when Giacomo della Chiesa was elected pope in September 1914, Cardinal Raphael Merry del Val turned to his neighbour in the Sistine Chapel and exclaimed: “This is a disaster!” His interlocutor wryly answered: “For Your Eminence, yes it is.”
Merry del Val had enjoyed untrammelled authority as secretary of state to Pius X, and della Chiesa, who took the name Benedict XV, was the candidate of a rival faction. Merry del Val had vigorously opposed his election and feared the end of his career. In the end, his fears were only partly fulfilled. Benedict was known to detest the Anglo-Spanish cardinal cordially, but he did not feel able to banish his influence completely. Although he was indeed replaced as secretary of state, Merry del Val lived out the remainder of his life as secretary of the Holy Office, a post only marginally less powerful.
Almost exactly a century later, many are sensing a settling of scores of a comparable, but more radical nature at work in the curial nominations being made by Pope Francis. So many heads have rolled, or are said to be about to roll, that one prominent Vaticanologist has written of a process of “de-Ratzingerisation” at work in the Curia.
It does seem at first sight as if several of those closest to Benedict XVI have fallen victim to the change of climate in Rome. First to feel the heat – at least publically – was the genial Italian Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, whose move a year ago from the post of prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy to the post of prefect of the Apostolic Penitentiary is hard to interpret as anything but a demotion. Another high profile change was the removal of the Spaniard Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera from the prefecture of the Congregation for Divine Worship – a congregation whose remit is at the heart of the Ratzingerian project – to become archbishop of his native Valencia. Since Cañizares was known as the “little Ratzinger” – as much on account of his appearance as because of his theology – many were quick to see his departure from Rome as evidence of a purge.
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