Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re is (not) dead -- Dishonorable Role in the Case of Bishop Krenn and Msgr. Wagner?

(Rome)   The father of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Bishops, who had reached the age of 104 has died.  Pope Benedict XVI. has extended to the Cardinal and his family his condolences.  Matteo Re was the eldest of the the older members of the College of Cardinals.  He first saw the light of the world in 1908 in the Italian province of Brescia.

Because of his father's great age of the father, it was assumed that the Pope's consolation note was meant for the Cardinal's death, who celebrates his 79th birthday on January 30th of 2013.

From 2000 to 2010, he was part of the important Dicastry for the naming of Bishops in the so-called Old World.  At the Consistorium of 2001 he was raised to Cardinal by John Paul II.  Til then Re was a Curial Bishop from 1989 as a substitute to the Vatican Secretary of State.  His career was introduced in 1987 with his appointment as Secretary of the Bishops' Congregation.

For ten years Cardinal Re had significant influence in episcopal appointments in the "old" Christian nations.  At the age of 76 years on the end of the second five year time of office, he was replaced by the French Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet,  who was much closer to Ratzinger's way of thinking.

In Austria, Catholics who are true to Rome are stubbornly of the opinion that Cardinal Re played a dishonorable role in the resignation of Bishop Kurt Krenn of St. Pölten, as much as he played in the rejection of Auxiliary Bishop Gerhard Maria Wagner in Linz.  In both cases it was after a smear campaign inspired by the media, that progressive parts of the Church exerted massive pressure on the persons concerned, to reduce the exercise of the episcopal offices for the sake of internal ecclesiastical peace.  While part of the clergy campaigned in conjunction, the other Bishops refused solidarity to those attacked.

The Italian Cardinal Gioanni Battista Re was born in the 30th of January 1934, in Borno like his father.  in 1957, he received his priestly ordination in his home diocese of Brescia.  There is also only one vacant place remaining, which which would be vacant in a conclave.

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1 comment:

Aged parent said...

Cardinal Re is not dead? Pity.