A FRESH LOOK AT
CARDINAL BERTONE
As reported in the BENEDICT thread, on January 22, L'Osservatore Romano published the letter written by the Holy Father on January 15 confirming Cardinal Bertone as his Secretary of State after hE marked his 75th birthday earlier, the usual canonical retirement age. Here is the English translation of the letter.
To my venerated and dear brother
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone
With the fine sensibility that distinguishes you, upon reaching your 75th birthday, you offered to resign as Secretary of State. I wish, first of all, to thank the Lord with you for the good achieved in the many years of your priestly and episcopal ministry.
In the present circumstances, it with great appreciation, indeed, that I recall the long road of our collaboration, which started with your work as a consultant to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
I also have in mind the sensitive work that you carried out to set up dialog with Mons, Marcel Lefebvre, and I will never forget my visit to Vercelli [where Bertone was bishop] which became for me a renewed encounter with a great witness to the faith, St. Eusebius of Vercelli.
When you were called by my beloved predecessor to serve in the Roman Curia, you carried out with competence and generous dedication the office of Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Those were intense and demanding years during which documents of great doctrinal and disciplinary importance were born.
I have always admired your sensus fidei, your doctrinal and canonical preparation, and your humanitas which helped us a lot at the CDF to live in an atmosphere of authentic familiarity, coupled with a determined work discipline.
All these qualities were the reasons that made me decide in the summer of 2006 to name you as my Secretary of State, and are the reasons why today and in the future, I would not wish to do without your valuable collaboration.
I therefore desire at this time, Cardinal, to wish you every good, and prosperity in the Lord, invoking the abundance of divine grace on your ministry as my close co-worker.
In entrusting you to the special protection and intercession of Mary Help of Christians and of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, I impart from the heart, with the hope of abundant divine compensation, the Apostolic Blessing that I gladly extend to the persons who are dearest and nearest to you.
From the Vatican
January 15, 2010
Four days later, Luigi Accattoli wrote the following story:
Bertone: The Pope's alter ego
by Luigi Accattoli
Translated from
Jan. 26, 2010
The confirmation of Cardinal Bertone as Secretary of State did not surprise anyone, but nonetheless, it has a double significance which deserves to be examined: It confirms the moderate and very personal line followed by Pope Benedict XVI thus far in his governance of the Church, and it consolidates the Italian fallout of that governance in terms of a lightening of legislation-connected 'pressing' on the government.
I consider the Ratzinger-Bertone team-up fortunate because of the very different human types they represent. The Pope is s focused, reserved and rational as his Secretary of State is pragmatic, extrovert and improvisatory.
Thus Bertone can not only be with the Pope in his decisions, but he can also try to integrate it with his counsel.
Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone was for more than 7 years (1996-2003) Cardinal Ratzinger’s closest co-worker at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Thanks to that experience, Benedict XVI chose him three and a half years ago to be his Secretary of State.
But the appreciation of Cardinal Ratzinger for his ‘gifts’ – that resulted in calling him to be his #2 man at the CDF - dates much earlier, when ‘don Bertone’ was just a consultant to the CDF. From 1988, in fact, when Cardinal Ratzinger named him to a group of experts who helped him in his negotiations with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
The Pope recalled all this in his January 15 letter confirming Bertone in his position, in which he recalls ‘the long road together of our collaboration’, ‘the sensitive work that you carried out to help build the dialog with Mons. Marcel Lefebvre”, and even 'the visit to Vercelli which was, for me, the occasion for a renewed encounter with a great witness to the faith, St. Eusebius of Vercelli'.
We have no date for this last event, but we can imagine that having been named Archbishop of Vercelli in 1991, the enterprising Bertone would have invited the German cardinal who, even as a young professor, had studied Eusebius as one of the Fathers of the Church.
Finally, the Pope in his letter refers to the human warmth that characterizes Bertone, about which anyone who has met the latter even minimally would agree.
“I have always admired your
sensus fidei, your doctrinal and canonical preparation and your
humanitas which helped us a lot at the CDF to live in an atmosphere of authentic familiarity”.
A true Salesian, sports aficionado and music lover, gifted with a beautiful if untrained voice, Bertone is an atypical ecclesiastical figure. He is more informal, easier to speak to, and more accessible compared to the typical Italian cardinal. His speciality is canon law.
As CDF secretary, on Cardinal Ratzinger’s behest, he was in charge of the publication of the ‘third secret’ of Fatima in 2000 and of handling the Milingo case in 2002. It was known even then that the cardinal appreciated his practical sense, his ability to execute orders rapidly, and his simplicity in dealing with others. But even his jovial character endeared him to the future Pope.
The son of an organist father, Bertone is a passionate music lover. In his free time, he plays the piano and loves to sing. During the Milingo investigations, he once ended up singing at s dinner with the Zambian exorcist bishop, who is also famous for his songwriting, and who reported later, “Even Mons. Bertone ended up singing – he has a beautiful voice”.
I think that becoming Secretary of State to Benedict XVI was an astute turn of Providence, or of history, to pair the extrovert Bertone with the reserved Ratzinger, just as the prudent Cardinal Casaroli was paired with the daring Wojtyla.
Bertone’s views are complementary to those of Pope Benedict, so when the two agree on any decision, we can be sure that both sides of the coin have been well examined.
His presence at the Secretariat of State can be seen favorably by those in Italy who desire an evolution of the State-Church relationship towards greater reciprocal autonomy of the two entities.
[But has that not been the situation since Italy's Christian Democrats disbanded in the 1980s and the Church 'lost' its 'home team' in Italian politics?]
Bertone has made his position clear that he thinks the relationship should be in the ‘diplomatic’ hands of the Vatican than in the ‘pastoral’ charge of the Italian bishops’ conference.
And so, as long as he is Secretary of State, we shall not feel the continual pressure of the Italian bishops on politics as there was in the years under Cardinal Ruini.
[Accattoli has obviously taken sides in the Bertone-CEI standoff. But Cardinal Bagnasco has not been less open and firm than Cardinal Ruini in articulating, on every possible occasion, the positions of the Italian Church on social and political issues that touch on pastoral concerns – including the touchy issue of how the government deals with immigrants, an issue that was not acute during the Ruini years.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 31/01/2010 06:16]