The dean of the Cardinal College is 91 years old. It is Giovanni Battista Re, Originally from Val Camonica. He will celebrate the funeral of Pope Francis who will take place on Saturday at 10 in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican. For John Paul II was Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI, who died on December 31, 2022 and whose funeral was celebrated by Bergoglio.
Giovanni Battista Re is dean of the College Cardinal, Prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Bishops and President Emeritus of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Bresciano, born in 1934, entered the seminary at 11 years old, in 1945, at the end of the war, exactly 80 years ago.
In 1957 he was ordained a priest And sent to complete his studies in Rome, he was a professor in the Brescia seminary and then returned to the Vatican. For the Holy See has often been abroad: to Nunciature in Panama in 1963, from 1967 to 1971 to the pontifical representation in Iran. In the Vatican it reaches the top. At the Secretariat of State in 1979, in 1987 he became secretary of the Congregation for the Bishops of the Cardinal College. Since 1989 he has been substitute for the general affairs of the Secretariat of State, often with John Paul II on his Apostolic Travel, in 2000 Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.
Since 2001 he has been cardinal. It was in the conclave of April 2005 that he elected Benedict XVI and the next one of 2013 which saw the election of L Conclave of March 2013 which elected Pope Francis. In 2017 he was elected vice-decaning and in 2020 he dean, both the choices of the cardinals were validated by the Pope who also approved, on January 7, the extension of the election to Decano.
The dean, with the help if necessary of the underground, in this case the Italian-Argentine Leonardo Sandri, has the task of give the news of the end of the pontificate to all cardinals, as well as to the diplomatic body accredited at the Holy See.
With the Pope’s death, the vacant venue begins. The Camerlengo is entrusted with the ordinary administration of the Vatican. He is assisted by the entire Cardinal College whose dean is Giovanni Battista Re, a cardinal ultraottanenne who will not enter the conclave
He must then convene the general congregations of the cardinals, to prepare the conclave. Cardinal Decano is the one who also presides over the “Pro Eligando Romano Pontifice” Mass before the beginning of the conclave, but does not enter the Sistine because they elect the Pope only the cardinals who are less than 80 years old. However, it is up to the dean establishes the Vatican agenda in this period. Neither king nor sandri enter conclave for age limits. To guide him will be the oldest of the cardinals of the order of bishops, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, current secretary of state.
Source: Vanity Fair
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