Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone
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His Eminence Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, S.D.B., JCD is a Roman Catholic archbishop and cardinal. He is currently the Cardinal Secretary of State and Cardinal Priest of S. Maria Auxiliatrice in via Tuscolana. Before taking office as Secretary of State on September 15, 2006 he served as Archbishop of Genoa.
[edit] Biography
Bertone was born 2 December 1934 in Romano Canavese, Piedmont, the fifth of eight children. He revealed his mother, was a determined anti-Fascist militant of the Italian Popular Party, and later a Christian Democrat.
He entered the Salesian order in 1950, and was ordained in 1960. The holder of a doctorate in Canon law, entitled The Governance of the Church in the Thought of Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758) [1]. Bertone has taught extensively on the subject, and was appointed Rector of the Pontifical Salesian University (where he himself had studied) in 1989.
In 1991, Bertone was appointed Archbishop of Vercelli by Pope John Paul II; he held that post until his resignation in 1995, when he was named Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a position within the Roman Curia. He was appointed Archbishop of Genoa in 2002 and elevated to the College of Cardinals in 2003, being associated as Cardinal Priest of Sanctae Mariae Auxiliatricis in via Tusculana.
As a member of the Society of Don Bosco he is still considered as a priest who has undertaken work with youth who, in Pope John Paul's last words, he had sought throughout his papacy. There was a story that "Bertone’s priest secretary recalled for the paper an occasion in which Bertone decided to take a public bus to the Vatican. As the Cardinal in his long black cassock and red fascia strode on to the bus, the people - especially a group of young people – stared in silence. Bertone immediately broke the ice with his “characteristic” smile. By the time he reached his destination the prelate had engaged the youth in a deep conversation on love, sex, virginity, and chastity" [2]
Moreover, Bertone's dissertation on tolerance and religious freedom has given him a good start as a theologian and canonist in a crisis-ridden world. He actually later specialized in the relationship between social morality, faith and politics. He also helped in the revision of Code of Canon Law, was Rector of Salesian University and undertook pastoral work in parishes.
In the Jubilee Year 2000, Cardinal Bertone was entrusted by Pope John Paul II with the publication of third part of the secret of Fatima.
Bertone was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI.
| Styles of Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone | |
| Image:Vetements cardinal Gamarelli.jpg | |
| Reference style | His Eminence |
| Spoken style | Your Eminence |
| Informal style | Cardinal |
| See | Genoa (Emeritus) |
On March 15, 2005, Bertone was in the news for "breaking the church's silence" and sharply criticizing Dan Brown's 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code, saying the book's central concept that Jesus had been married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a bloodline was heresy and "shameful", and that believers should boycott the book. Both Bertone and official Vatican spokespeople insisted that Bertone was not speaking as an official representative of the church, but it was also noted that Bertone's high placement within the Church hierarchy (his name was often cited as a potential candidate for the next pontiff) gave his words considerable weight, such that his comments were often reported by various media as an official statement from the Vatican. [3] In 2006, the NBC news program Dateline described his statement as, "a high-ranking Vatican Cardinal called for a boycott of the film."
On June 22, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal Bertone to replace Angelo Cardinal Sodano as the Cardinal Secretary of State. Bertone assumed the new office on September 15, 2006. It was revealed on 31 August 2006 that Cardinal Bertone had a dream in which Pope John Paul II spoke to him saying "do not be afraid" to the cardinal as he prepares to take his new job [4].
Bertone is known to study the problem at hand before taking action. One such example is when after he was named bishop he "locked himself in his room all night and studied the life of Saint Eusebius, who was bishop of the city back in 345 AD" [5]
Just before coming to his new office, in an interview in response to a question about Curial reform he said "after almost two decades, an evaluation of how the dicasteries are organised is more than comprehensible, in order to reflect on how to make the existing structures more efficient for the mission of the Church and eventually to consider whether all of them should be maintained." [6]
[edit] Pope Benedict XVI Islam Controversy
On 16 September 2006, Cardinal Bertone, after only one day in his job as Cardinal Secretary of State, released a declaration explaining that the "position of the Pope concerning Islam is unequivocally that expressed by the conciliar document Nostra Aetate" and that "the Pope's option in favour of inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue is equally unequivocal." <ref>"Traduzione In Lingua Inglesse", Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 16 September, 2006</ref>
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[edit] External links
| Preceded by: Dionigi Cardinal Tettamanzi | Archbishop of Genova 2002 - 2006 | Succeeded by: Angelo Bagnasco |
| Preceded by: Angelo Cardinal Sodano | Cardinal Secretary of State 2006 – present | Incumbent |
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