You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘pontifical council for justice and peace’ tag.
One day before the admission of six new members to the group of cardinal electors, the number of that group drops with one to 114. Renato Raffaele Martino reached the age of 80 today and has thus became ineligible to vote in a future conclave.
Hailing from the southern Italian town of Salerno, Renato Martino entered the Holy See’s diplomatic service in 1962, five years after his ordination to the priesthood. He earned a doctorate in canon law in that time. Fr. Martino served in various countries, among them Nicaragua, the Philippines, Lebanon, Canada and Brazil.
In 1980, he was consecrated to bishop and made titular archbishop of Segermes in modern Tunisia. Archbishop Martino was sent to head the diplomatic missions in Thailand, and Laos. In 1981, he also became such in Singapore in addition to his other positions. Brunei and Malaysia followed in 1983.
In 1986, he was reassigned to the high-profile position of Permanent Observer to the United Nations. In his time at the UN in New York, Archbishop Martino was an outspoken critic of the American invasion of Iraq in 1991. Another important call, related to his future functions in Rome, was his call for a safe heaven to be created for Tutsi refugees in Rwanda, to prevent the death of 30,000 people.
Archbishop Martino would continue in this position until 2002, when he was recalled to Rome to become president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. With that position came the red hat, and Cardinal Martino was created in 2003, in Blessed John Paul II’s last consistory. He became cardinal deacon of San Francesco di Paolo ai Monti. As head of Justice and Peace, Cardinal Martino intervened, to no avail, on behalf of Terri Schiavo, in the widely-covered case of her euthanasia. He also spoke out against the death sentence against Saddam Hussein and called for a international peace conference for the Middle East. He was once again openly against American interventions in Iraq. Later, he was involved in peace conferences between Israel and Palestinians, and likened Gaza to a “huge concentration camp”. In another example of his strongly pro-life position, Cardinal Martino urged Catholics to stop donating to Amnesty International when that organisation decided to advocate abortion in 2007.
From 2006 until his retirement in 2009, Cardinal Martino was also the president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People.
Following his retirement, Cardinal Martino remained a member of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of People, the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum” the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See and the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State. His pro-life attitude was rewarded in 2009 with the awarding of the title of Honorary President of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute in Rome. In 2011, in his last major diplomatic endeavours, Cardinal Martino visited Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, where he met with Aung San Suu Kyi.
Photo credit: AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko
In the run-up to the previous consistory, we’ve heard often that one of the duties of cardinals is to aid the pope in all manner of Church-related affairs. Exactly how that takes shape became clear yesterday, as the new cardinals have been appointed to seats on various congregations, tribunals, councils and committees. Here follows a list of the dicasteries and the new cardinals that were assigned to them.
- Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Cardinals Alencherry, Filoni and Coccopalmerio
- Congregation for the Oriental Churches: Cardinals Alencherry, Dolan, Muresan, Filoni and O’Brien
- Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments: Cardinal Vegliò
- Congregation for the Causes of the Saints: Cardinals Monteiro de Castro and Abril y Castelló
- Congregation for Bishops: Cardinals Monteiro de Castro, Abril y Castelló, Bertello and Versaldi
- Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples: Cardinals Tong Hon, Abril y Castelló, Bertello and Calcagno
- Congregation for the Clergy: Cardinals Eijk and Braz de Aviz
- Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life: Cardinals Duka and Versaldi
- Congregation for Education: Cardinals Collins, Eijk, Betori, Woelki, Filoni, Braz de Aviz and O’Brien
- Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura: Cardinals Coccopalmerio and Versaldi
- Pontifical Council for the Laity: Cardinal Vegliò
- Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity: Cardinals Woelki and Coccopalmerio
- Pontifical Council for the Family: Cardinal Vegliò
- Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace: Cardinals Duka and Bertello
- Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”: Cardinal O’Brien
- Pontifical Council for Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People: Cardinal Monteiro de Castro
- Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers: Cardinal Calcagno
- Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue: Cardinal Tong Hon
- Pontifical Council for Culture: Cardinal Betori
- Pontifical Council for Social Communications: Cardinals Collins and Dolan
- Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation: Cardinal Dolan
- Pontifical Committee for the International Eucharistic Congresses: Cardinal Braz de Aviz
Both new to the Congregation for Education: Cardinals Thomas Collins and Wim Eijk
All the Church’s cardinals under the age of 80 (and some over 80) have one or more functions within the dicasteries of the Roman Curia. This is in addition to their regular duties as diocesan bishops or curial prelates. In practice it means that they’ll have to be in Rome a bit more often than before.
Our own Cardinal Eijk has been appointed to the Congregations for Clergy (responsible for all secular priests and deacons) and Education (seminaries and Catholic schools). He will than be in Rome for up to four times a year, as these dicasteries meet. Cardinal Eijk will not be needed in Rome for the day-to-day affairs of the Congregations and, even then, he will of course be able to do a significant amount of work from Utrecht.
These appointments form one of two steps that fully integrate new cardinals into the curia. The other step is the official taking possession of their title churches. This can take some time, sometimes up to a year after the consistory in which a cardinal was created. Of the latest batch, only Cardinals Filoni and Grech have done so. Cardinals Becker, Monteiro de Castro and Tong Hon will take possession of their churches today, and Cardinal Coccopalmerio will follow on Thursday. The dates for the other cardinals are not yet known.
Photo credit: Franco Origlia/Getty Images
As next year major Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelisation slowly creeps closer, the Holy See appoints prelates to make sure the entire affair proceeds smoothly. One of the more important jobs, certainly the most visible, is that of Relator-General, in essence the spokesman for the Synod.
The Relator-General is responsible for the main opening address, and also for collecting the conclusions and results of the Synod for its final message and ultimately the ultimate papal document, today still some three or four years away.
For past Synods, the Holy Father has appointed prelates which subsequently received high postings in Rome, prelates held in high esteem by the pope. Among these illustrious names are those of Cardinal Angelo Scola (who was moved from Venice to Milan this year), Cardinal Peter Turkson (called to Rome to head the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace), and Cardinal Marc Ouellet (now heading the Congregation of Bishops).
The latest name on this list, appointed to be the Relator-General for the 2012 Synod, is that of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington DC, United States (pictured at right having a laugh shortly before his elevation to cardinal last November). Rocco Palmo has more on the cardinal, who received the red hat last November.
Another important role in the Synod is that of the Secretary, who records the goings-on of the Synod and as such plays a vital role for the Relator-General too. Appointed for that job is Msgr. Pierre-Marie Carré (left), the archbishop of Montpellier, France. Msgr. Carré has been an archbishop since 2000, first of Albi, and since May 2010 as Coadjutor Archbishop of Montpellier. In June of this year he took over the reins from Archbishop Guy Thomazeau.
Two fairly recent appointments, a recently-created cardinal and a fairly recently-appointed archbishop, given high-profile duties at a Synod of Bishops from the entire worldwide Church. Ones to watch, I would say.
Photo credit: [1] Alex Wong/Getty Images, [2] Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images
This is the first installment of a series of who’s who in the Vatican, a series that will very likely appear quite irregularly. In it, I take a look at the men – and women – in Rome, who work to guide and shepherd the Church all over the world.
He is considered one of the rising stars in Rome and inevitably plays his part in the guessing game called ‘who will be the first African pope in modern times?’. He is Peter Kodwo Appiah Cardinal Turkson, 61 years old, born in Ghana, where he was ordained a priest in 1975. In 1992 he was appointed as Archbishop of Cape Coast and in the consistory of 2003, the last one convened by Pope John Paul II, he received the red cardinal’s hat. He left Ghana last year to become prefect of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, which works to promote justice and peace in the world, “in the light of the Gospel and of the social teaching of the Church”(Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus, art. 142). He also has a link to the Netherlands, since in 1994 he was one of the co-consecrators of Bishop Tiny Muskens, the previous bishop of Breda.
Cardinal Turkson’s appointment as prefect came after he had chaired the three-week Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops. During the preparation of that assembly he obviously made a good impression in Rome.
Considering both his function and his background, it is no surprise that Cardinal Turkson remains deeply involved with the Church in Africa. Only last week, he travelled to a village in Nigeria, to offer Mass for the victims of bloody clashes between Muslims and Christians earlier this month*.
Like Francis Cardinal Arinze before him, Cardinal Turkson is considered in many circles to be a very good candidate for the first modern African pope. Of course, a pope is not, or at least should not, be chosen simply for his place of origin, but in general it is not illogical to expect a pope with African (or Asian or South American) roots. These are the places where the Church is young and full of growth. As the faithful increase there and decrease in Europe, the chances of influential Church leaders from those areas grows equally. For now, though, Africa still has the numbers against it. Out of the 182 Cardinals, only 13 hail from Africa. But still, in 1978, the Cardinal elected an outsider to the Chair of St. Peter…
Cardinal Turkson is young (for a cardinal, clearly) and unafraid to live his faith. These are the men the Church needs, and the Holy Spirit provides and inspires them.
*The reason for the clashes, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos said, is not religious in nature: “The fact that the Fulani are Muslim, and the villagers are mostly Christians, is an incidental fact. The real motivation for the massacre is the alleged theft of the livestock.”
“I am concerned about the fact that the large international press continues to present the clashes that take place in Plateau State as a religious conflict between Christians and Muslims. This is not so.”
