Honoring Cardinal Sodano
for major anniversaries
on his name day
Translated from the 10/3/10 issue of
A luncheon in honor of Cardinal Angelo Sodano on Saturday, Oct. 2, in the Sala dei Paramenti (Hall of Garments) of the Apostolic Palace.
The occasion was the 60th anniversary of his priestly ordination and the 50th in service to the Holy See of the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who is 83. The anniversaries fall on his name day, the feast of the guardian angels.
The luncheon was offered by Benedict XVI. The guests included Cardinals Tarcisio Bertone, Roger Etchegaray, Giovanni Battista Re, Leonardo Sandri and Giovanni Lajolo; Archbishops Fernando Filoni, deputy secretary of state for internal affairs, and his foreign relations counterpart, Dominique Mamberti; Manuel Monteiro de Castro, secretary of the Congregation for Bishops and of the College of Cardinals; Mons. Peter Bryan Wells and Ettore Balestrero, counselors at the Secretariat of State; and the Pope's private secretaries, Mons. Georg Gaenswein and Alfred Xuereb.
At the end of the meal, the addressed words of gratitude to Cardinal Sodano and presented him with a framed letter and photograph to commemorate the occasion.
I certainly hope no one in the media will exploit this gracious fraternal gesture by the Holy Father to once more make malicious and invidious insinuations of any unholy alliance between him and Sodano (whom the media has portrayed as being responsible for 'protecting' figures like the now departed Cardinal Groer and Fr. Maciel from sex-abuse investigations when he was John Paul II's Secretary of State).