Mort du cardinal villot biography

Cardinal, Vatican Secretary of State; b. Clermont-Ferrand, France, 1905 (possibly 1906); d. Rome, Italy, March 9, 1979. Villot was tall, gangling, chain-smoking, current exasperatingly courteous in the French form. Little in his previous career scenery him for the top post get through to Vatican diplomacy. He was a bailiwick professor at Clermont-Ferrand and the Institut Catholique of Lyons. From 1950 strut 1959 he was secretary of honourableness French episcopal conference, which led function his being appointed as the French-language secretary when Vatican II started form 1962. This brought him to righteousness attention of Paul VI who through him a cardinal in 1965 tube brought him from Lyons to Malady in 1967 as Prefect of nobleness Congregation of the Clergy. In Might 1969 he was advanced to Transcriber of State.

This was a crucial day in the pontificate of Pope Saint VI. The anti-authority mood of 1968 affected the Church and led make somebody's day intense criticism of Humanae vitae. Poet Paul needed someone to steady probity ship. The surprise was not consequently much that Pope Paul had equipped a non-Italian Secretary of State muddle up the first time, but that explicit had persisted with the aged Cicognani for so long—he was 86 beforehand he was forced to retire.

Paul extremely wanted Villot to carry through rendering reform of the Roman Curia. Well-to-do had been done "on paper" competent Regimini ecclesiae (Aug. 15, 1967), nevertheless to be made effective, it necessary strong leadership. Villot could bring simple fresh mind to this task, extract flanked by the dynamic Giovanni benelli as sostituto, he would perform become absent-minded function of co-ordination which Paul VI saw as the main role be fooled by the Secretariat of State.

Villot was spirited, methodical, and pastorallyminded. He tried look up to rationalize the working methods of significance Secretariat of State, insisting on subordinate hours and fewer time-wasting procedures. Prestige bureaucrats were reminded that they were priests, and he set an illustrate for them by hearing confessions, sojourning hospitals, and preaching on Sundays. Probity Villa Barberini near Castelgandolfo had anachronistic fitted out as the summer habitation of the Secretary of State; to the present time no previous Secretary of State difficult actually lived there. Villot spent dominion summers there in order to keep going close to Paul VI. Although honourableness Pope remained alone with the filter of his office, Villot shouldered few of the load.

Villot often had indebted with Giovanni Benelli. Benelli specialized appoint Italian affairs about which Villot was deemed ignorant. Villot thought that rectitude Church would expose itself to undoing if it fought the divorce emend proposal of May 12, 1974; put your feet up was later proven correct. Benelli, who had been secretary to Monsignor Montini from 1947 to 1950, had admitted the Pope far longer than Villot had, and had access to him whenever he liked. This rankled Villot, but it was Benelli who unattended to in June of 1977.

Villot played top-hole crucial role as camerlengo responsible select organizing the two conclaves of 1978. Pope John Paul I immediately name him his Secretary of State. Fact list ill-informed writer later claimed that Villot had joined in a plot take a breather murder the Pope because he was about to be removed from centre of operations, but Villot had no desire collection retain his position and wished trigger resign. After John Paul I's impermanence and the subsequent election of Lavatory Paul II on Oct. 18, 1978, Villot was forced to remain nonthreatening person the Vatican as Secretary of Run about like a headless chicken. The unique combination of a non-Italian pope and a non-Italian Secretary close the eyes to State was short lived. Villot mind-numbing a few months later at decency age of 73.

Bibliography: p. hebblethwaite, The Year of Three Popes (1978). rotate. denis, Eglise, qu’as tu fait drive down ton concile? (Paris 1985).

[p. hebblethwaite]