The Cardinal Secretary of State

It is generally assumed that Pope Francis (and it isn't Pope Francis I) will soon appoint a new Cardinal Secretary of State. IF His Holiness follows the example of his predecessors, and it cannot be assumed he will, then the appointee will already be a Cardinal.

Checking back as far as to the appointment of Fabio Chigi in 1651, only four prelates were not already Cardinals upon appointment as Secretary of the Secretariat of State. From the appointment of Fabrizio Cardinal Paolucci for a second time (in 1724 under Pope Benedict XIII; he had served as Secretary of State under Pope Clement XI from December 3, 1700 until March 19, 1721) the general rule has been that the Cardinal Secretary of State has been a Cardinal upon appointment. Cardinal Paolucci himself died prematurely and had to be replaced, and his replacement was not already a Cardinal (see below).

It should also be noted that two prelates were on the same day created Cardinal AND named Secretary of State: Ercole Consalvi (August 11, 1800; first appointment) and Luigi Jacobini (December 16, 1880). Note, also, that Domenico Cardinal Ferrata was named Cardinal Secretary of State by Pope Benedict XV on September 4, 1914, but he died soon after, on October 10, of peritonitis after an illness which lasted several weeks (because of which it was considered imprudent to operate). He was replaced by Pietro Cardinal Gasparri.

The four non-Cardinals upon appointment as Secretary of the Secretariat of State were:  

(1) Fabio Chigi, Bishop of Nardò, Italy, was Apostolic Nuncio in Cologne June 11, 1639 until 1651. Pope Innocent X (1644-55) appointed him Secretary of State in early 1651 (exact date unknown). He was created Cardinal Priest in the title of Santa Maria del Popolo at Innocent X's Consistory VI on February 19, 1652. He was sent as envoy extraordinary to the conference of Münster, 1644, which culminated with the Peace of Westphalia, 1648, ending the Thirty Years’ War.

Cardinal Secretary of State Chigi was elected Pope Alexander VII on April 7, 1655. He died on May 22, 1667.

(At that same consistory of 1652, Pietro Vito Ottoboni, auditor of the Sacred Roman Rota, was created Cardinal Priest in the title of S. Salvatore in Lauro. Elected Pope Alexander VIII on October 6, 1689 (died February 1, 1691)).

(2) Giulio Rospigliosi, Titular Archbishop of Tarsus, formerly Apostolic Nuncio to Spain, was living in retirement (1653-55) when he was named Governor of Rome by the Sacred College of Cardinals during the sede vacante, January 8 until April 15, 1655. He was appointed Secretary of State by Alexander VII (1655-1667) at some point in that April of 1655 following upon Alexander VII’s election and served until May 22, 1667. He was elected pope on June 20, 1667, and took the name Clement IX.

(3) Federico Borromeo Jr, Titular Patriarch of Alexandria, Apostolic Nuncio to Spain, was named Secretary of State in May, 1670, following upon the election of Clement X on April 29. On December 22, 1670, he was created Cardinal Priest in the title of S. Agostino. He opted for the title of S. Agnese fuori le mura, August 8, 1672.

(4) Nicolò Maria Lercari, Titular Archbishop of Nazianzus, was appointed Secretary of State on June 14, 1726, by Pope Benedict XIII (1724-1730) following the death of Fabrizio Cardinal Paolucci. He was created Cardinal Priest in the title of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo on December 9, 1726. He served as Benedict XIII’s Prime minister and Secretary of State until February 21, 1730.

New Year in Florence: March 25, Feast of the Annunciation

March 25, 2013, may have been the last Monday in March and the first working day of Holy Week, but it was also being celebrated in Florence as the traditional start of their New Year (more of which anon).

I was there!

                                                                             

                                                                                 

                                                                                 

Obviously, it being New Year...


                                                                                 

One has to be prepared to sacrifice one's principles so as not to offend the locals! Ahem, in the local as it were.

Later in the week we spent a day in Pisa.

                                                                           

Of course, the resident Calvinist was in attendance. It was after all a wee treat for her **th birthday

Cardinal Sandri: Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone's replacement?

On the afternoon of Thursday, March 21, Pope Francis received in audience His Eminence Leonardo Cardinal Sandri (69) (above), Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. This was the first audience granted a dicastery head after the inauguration of the pontificate. Of course, this may simply have been a courtesy as Cardinal Sandri is both an Argentinian national and, like the Holy Father himself, of Italian parentage.

However, there is another possible interpretation. In the days following the inauguration of the late Benedictine pontificate, Pope Benedict’s first audience with an American prelate was not with any of the Cardinal Archbishops but with the Archbishop of San Francisco, not a Red Hat See. A short while later it was announced that that prelate, the then Most Rev Archbishop William (Bill), later Cardinal, Levada, was to replace Cardinal, by then Papa, Ratzinger as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Cardinal Sandri is a product of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, Class of ’71. As is the case with most, indeed, nearly all, alumni of the Academia he holds a doctorate in Canon Law. And as is the case with ALL alumni, he is fluent in several languages: besides his native Spanish and, obviously, Italian, he has also mastered French, English and German. As a canonist Latin is a given. Perhaps academic/classical Greek as well.

One of Cardinal Sandri’s classmates was Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, currently Apostolic Nuncio to the USA and formerly Secretary-General of the Governatorate of Vatican City State (July 16, 2009 to September 3, 2011). Mgr Viganò was removed from that post under somewhat controversial circumstances. Another was Lorenzo Baldisseri, the current Secretary of the Congregation for Bishops (appointed January 11, 2012) who was Secretary of the Conclave (and who can therefore expect to be created cardinal in early course).

(NB: I originally drafted this post, but did not then publish it for various reasons, on March 23 before leaving for a short break in Florence. It has subsequently emerged that Pope Francis placed his then un-needed red zucchetto on Mgr Baldisseri's head when the latter made his obeisance after the cardinals at the conclusion of the Conclave, signifying his intention to name him cardinal at his first consistory.) 

Cardinal Sandri entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1974 and served in the nunciatures in Madagascar and Mauritius before being recalled to Rome in 1977 to work in the Secretariat of State. In 1989 he was sent to the nunciature in Washington. While there he also served as Permanent Observer of the Holy See before the Organization of American States. On August 22, 1991 he was appointed Regent of the prefecture of the Pontifical Household. Eight months later, on April 2, 1992, he was appointed Assessor of the Secretariat of State for General Affairs.

Elected titular Archbishop of Cittanova and named nuncio in Venezuela on July 22, 1997, His Eminence was consecrated bishop on October 11, 1997, in St Peter’s at the hands of then Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano assisted by Cardinal Juan Carlos Aramburu, archbishop emeritus of Buenos Aires, and by Giovanni Battista Re, then titular archbishop of Vescovio, Substitute of the Secretariat of State for General Affairs (who, as the senior Cardinal Bishop still an elector, was acting dean of the recent Conclave).

On March 1, 2000, Archbishop Sandri was transferred to Mexico. However, a mere six months later, on September 16, 2000, he was recalled to Rome and appointed Secretary of State Substitute for General Affairs, sostituto (in effect the papal Chief of Staff). When Blessed Pope John Paul II was unable to read his speeches, it was Mgr Sandri, and NOT as the popular press had it the papal Secretary Archbishop, now Cardinal, Dziwisz, who read them for him. It was also Cardinal Sandri who, in what may have been a breach of protocol, announced the Pope’s death to the world from St Peter’s Square.

Appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches on June 9, 2007, he was raised to the cardinalatial dignity at the consistory of November 24, 2007. He enjoyed the honour and privilege of being No 1 on the list of new cardinals.

Prior to the recent Conclave, Cardinal Sandri was regarded as papabile. It is now entirely possible that the granting of this audience on March 21 may indicate that he is soon to be appointed Cardinal Secretary of State in succession to Cardinal Bertone. Some would argue, persuasively it must be said, that a non-Italian Pope would have to have an Italian Secretary of State. However, one of Cardinal Bertone’s great failings was his involvement, meddling, in both Italian civil and ecclesiastical politics. Cadinal Sandri is an ethnic Italian but has clean hands in this regards.

Savita Halappanavar: abortion was the last thing she needed

On Monday, November 19, The Herald published a Letter to the Editor from one Veronica Wikman. Ms Wikman is unknown to me but she describes herself on line as “a native Swedish linguist and freelance translator, living in Edinburgh since 1997”.

Her letter was headed “Ireland must adopt a more enlightened approach to the rights of women” and it began: “Savita Halappanavar can now be added to the long list of women who have been killed in the name of religion...”

Naturally, on reading this I immediately drafted a reply. And equally naturally, I found on Tuesday morning that it had not been published. Nor was it published today, Wednesday. (Plus ça change plus c’est la même chose).

My epistle to The Editor at The Herald read:

“Dear Sir

Savita Halappanavar, aged 31 years, an Indian citizen (from Belgaum, Karnataka) and a Hindu who practised locally as a dentist, died on October 28 in University Hospital, Galway, Ireland. The cause of death has been reported in India to have been “severe septicaemia with disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), a life-threatening bleeding disorder which is a complication of sepsis, major organ damage and loss of the mother’s blood due to severe infection” (The Hindu, Bangalore, Friday, Nov 16).

The Hindu interviewed one of India’s leading consultants in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Dr Hema Divakar, President-elect of the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI). The informed observations of this professional put the lie to the accusation that Mrs Halappanavar can “be added to the long list of women who have been killed in the name of religion” (Veronica Wilkman, Letters, Nov 19).

Dr Divakar told The Hindu: “Based on information in the media, in that situation of septicaemia, if the doctors had meddled with the live baby, Savita would have died two days earlier.” That is, medically abortion was contra-indicated.

In some quarters, it has been suggested that because Mrs Halappanavar was a dentist by profession she would have been much more aware of the medical implications of what was happening to her and thus if she had begged the doctors to perform an abortion, they should have obliged.

But Dr Divakar stated: “Having understood that the baby was not going to make it, the couple would have asked for termination. But as Savita’s infection may have required aggressive treatment at that stage, doctors must have felt the need to prevent complications. The usual [practice] is to meddle the least till the mother is stable.”

Sadly, the outcome was tragic. But it wasn’t that tragic that the pro-abortion lobby was going to pass up what it saw as a huge opportunity to bring pressure to bear on the Irish government. They then spent two weeks preparing last week’s spontaneous demonstrations and news stories.

It should be remembered that midwifery care in Ireland is amongst the best in the world; much safer than it is either here or in the USA. At least three women died last year in England and Wales from abortion gone wrong. God knows how many died in the USA. None did in Ireland.

Yours etc”

I would like to point out that the names of the three women who died have been published on the SPUC website, but I had no wish to bring further distress to the families and friends of the deceased.

One is left wondering why The Herald did not publish my letter. Too long? No, at 387 words it is 13 short of the magical figure of 400 (which they often ignore anyway). Factually controversial? Hardly, it would take a newspaperman only a couple of minutes to check on line that my references weren't bogus. Badly written?Well, others must judge that but at least one communications professional who has read it described it as "excellent".

So bias seems the only likely explanation. Surprise, surprise.

Appointment of Experts to the General Synod of Bishops XIII

From Missionary Catholic Ireland: One!

(An edited version of this was recently published by The Scottish Catholic Observer.)

For the last quarter of the 19th Century and most of the 20th, the missionary activity of the Catholic Church — the “Old Evangelisation”, as it were — was inextricably linked to Catholic Ireland; and for much of the latter century this included the diaspora settled in the three countries of Great Britain. Indeed, during that century, the alma mater of your humble but esteemed scrivener here, Our Lady’s High School, Motherwell, produced more priests than any other school in Great Britain, and perhaps even Ireland itself. One ended up in the Sacred College of Cardinals, but most went on the missions.

It was, then, somewhat of a surprise that when Archbishop Nikola Eterović, the Croatian Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, announced the names of the 45 Adiutores Secretarii Specialis (or Experts) approved by Pope Benedict to assist the Fathers of General Synod XIII on “The New Evangelisation for the Transmission of the Christian Faith”, only one was an Irishman: Rev Professor Dr Éamonn Conway.

Fr Conway, a priest of the Archdiocese of Tuam, is Head of Theology and Religious Studies at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. Formerly President of the European Society for Catholic Theology, he is currently President of the International Network for Societies of Catholic Theology, which has the delightful acronym INSeCT.

Only two experts have been recruited from Great Britain; both of them are lay, and it may surprise some that 50% of them is a woman. This is Dr. Caroline Farey, a Professor at the Maryvale Institute, Birmingham, where she directs the BA programme in Applied Theology for Catechesis. She also lectures in Philosophy at St Mary’s College, Oscott, Seminary of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, where she teaches Metaphysics, Epistemology, and on St Thomas Aquinas.

The other British expert has also been tapped from the Maryvale Institute, its Deputy Director, Professor Petroc Willey. Encouraged by Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna (who is likely to enter the next conclave as papabile despite a recent little local difficulty) in 2008 Dr Willey co-authored (with Professor Barbara Morgan and Fr. Pierre de Cointet) “Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Craft of Catechesis”.

The Maryville Institute is entirely independent of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. Doubtless most of that hierarchy will be amazed that none of their own experts have been recruited by the Holy Father and Archbishop Eterović. But will they be able to read the runes?

Of course, although Scotland provides no Experts specifically for the General Synod, we do have several very gifted priests working in the Vatican who may be called upon to contribute their various gifts in different ways during the three weeks of the Synod (October 7-28). Principal among these is Monsignor Leo Cushley, and he can expect to be particularly busy. As Head, caposezione — I know, it sounds a bit Mafia-ish — of the English Language Section of the Secretariat of State he is the Holy Father’s English Language Interpreter. And when the Pope has no prior call on his services, he is also the Cardinal Secretary of State’s, Cardinal Bertone’s, interpreter. And there are going to be an awful lot of English speaking prelates (and others) meeting with both in coming weeks. (Not to mention the fact that his other many duties and responsibilities won’t go away for the month of October.)

Mgr Gerard McKay, a judge of the Roman Rota, has for some considerable time now been a consultor to the Vox Clara Committee which produced the new English translation of the Roman Missal. This, of course, underpins the New Evangelisation in the Anglophone Catholic Church. And as an official of the Doctrine Section of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mgr Patrick Burke may have much to ponder in coming weeks.

As to the remaining 42 experts appointed to the Synod, 18 have been recruited from within Italy, although four of these are non-Italians (two Spanish, one Serbian and one Nigerian), 6 from the rest of Europe, 6 from North America (five from the USA and one from Canada), 3 from Latin America, 6 from Africa and 3 from Asia.

Ten of the 45 Experts are female, seven religious and three laywomen. Unsurprisingly, neither of the two American nuns is associated with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the USA Green Party at prayer.

Of the 35 male Experts, one of the Italian appointees ensures that for three weeks in October there will be Four Popes of Rome. To add to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, the real Pope, as regular readers will know, there is the Red Pope, currently His Eminence Fernando Filoni, Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples (Propaganda Fide as was before a certain Paul Joseph Goebbels got propaganda a bad name) and the Black Pope, Fr Adolfo Nicolás, Superior General (though usually called the Father General) of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits).

Joining this holy trinity (as opposed to THE Holy Trinity) will be Professor Rodolfo Pope, Professor of Art History and Aesthetics at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome.

Another of the male Experts is a priest to whom Holy Family Parish, Mossend, can lay part claim. Fr Marko Ivan Rupnik is a Slovenian, a Jesuit, an expert in missiology, a theologian and an artist. More specifically, he is a theologian artist in the great mosaic tradition of Eastern iconography. In September 1991 he was appointed Director of the newly established Centro Aletti, Rome, by its founder, Fr Clarence Gallagher SJ, the Rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute Rome, another alumnus of Our Lady’s High School and, to quote himself “a wee guy from the Clydesdale Road”.

Our surprise at the dearth of experts from the Irish Church and its diaspora — to Fr Conway can be probably be added the entire North American contingent (a Butler, a Driscoll, a Martin, a Miller, a Peters and a Goulding) and possibly the Englishwoman — is perhaps explained by the first paragraph of the Introduction to an INSeCT colloquium held at De Paul University, Chicago, June 14-16, 2011. This read:

“The Rapidly Changing Global Context: In the past fifty years the world population of Catholics has doubled. At the same time, the centre of gravity in the Catholic world has shifted from Western Europe to the Southern Hemisphere. The largest concentrations of Catholics live today in Brazil, the Philippines, and Mexico. Even more remarkably, the Vatican Yearbook reports that the Catholic population of Africa has increased by 33% in the past decade alone. By the year 2050, it is expected that fully 70% of Catholics will reside in the global south.”

That is why we have to re-evangelise the global north.

PS: I would advise readers who appreciate religious art to look up the Capella Redemptoris Mater on the internet and take the stunning visual tour. This is the larger of the Pope’s private chapels. If I remember correctly, it was when Pope John Paul II was celebrating the 40th anniversary of his episcopal ordination that the Sacred College of Cardinals made a presentation to him of a substantial sum of money which he chose to use for the redecoration and rededication of this chapel wherein the Lenten Retreat of the Papal Household is held and the Advent sermons of the Preacher to the Papal Household, currently Father Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap, are delivered.

Fr Marko Rupnik was chosen for the task and the late Cardinal Tomáš Špidlík SJ, whom Fr Clarence also recruited to the staff of the Centro Aletti, advised on the theological theme.

See: http://www.vatican.va/redemptoris_mater/flash/index.html?lingua=it

The Pope in the Lebanon: Part Two

(With apologies, since this should have been posted a couple of days ago. Those days have been lost to a bad cold.)

So what is meant by “the Oriental Church”? Where exactly is the ecclesiastical “Orient”?

A rule of thumb might help. Take a map of Europe and North Africa. Place your ruler along the eastern coast of Italy. Barring the countries in central Europe, as you sweep your ruler round clockwise, the countries it traverses, right round to those on North Africa’s Mediterranean coast, are the home of Eastern Christianity, Catholic and Orthodox. All the way down to Ethiopia and across to India. But nowadays you have to take into account the various Diasporas.

I had the great honour of meeting a group of one part of one element of those Diasporasa in Rome during the weekend of the consistory in November 2007. These were a group of Iraqi Chaldean Catholics who had emigrated to the USA. They were present to see and support their Patriarch, Emmanuel III (Emmanuel-Karim) Delly, Archbishop of Baghdad, honoured by Pope Benedict with elevation to the Sacred College. As Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans, Cardinal Delly joined the Order of Cardinal Bishops. As such, on the Sunday morning at the Ring Mass he was Principal Co-Concelebrant with the Holy Father.

The pictures below were taken by me, using a friend’s camera in St Peter’s Square on the Saturday morning (November 24, 2007) immediately after the public consistory for the naming of the new cardinals. Cardinal Delly is a lovely wee man. He greatly impressed with the way he concelebrated on the Sunday morning. In Latin. The love of his people for him was tangible. I must apologise for the fact that they are so poor. I’m not very good at taking pics, but to make matters worse, I got caught up in this scrum totally unexpectedly.

Pictures of His Beatitude Cardinal Mar Emmanuel III Delly, Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans.

  

In the early Church there were three major centres: Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. In the earliest laws of the Church, the Bishops of these three cities were accorded the status of a Patriarch and the Bishop of Rome, as successor to Peter, was accorded the position of honour, he was primus inter pares. But each of the Patriarchs governed within his own territory. The Bishop of Rome had no jurisdiction over the other Patriarchs. And he did not appoint them. Nor did he appoint their bishops.

It would take too long, and it would all be rather boring, to recite the history of the development of the modern Patriarchates and the Rites and Churches associated with them. But today there are 5 Eastern Rites, each with a Patriarch. These, obviously, are geographically in the East.) Within each Eastern Rite there are separate territorial Churches headed by a Bishop, an Archbishop or a Major Archbishop. In all, there are 22 sui iuris Eastern Rite Churches in full communion with Rome (this legal term means that they have full competence to manage their own affairs; for example in Synod they elect their own bishops, who are then approved by the Pope). These are:

Alexandrian Rite: Coptic Church (Patriarchal), Ethiopic Church (Archiepiscopal);

Antiochean Rite: Maronite Church (Patriarchal), Syro-Malankar Church (Major Archiepiscopal), Syrian Church (Patriarchal);

Armenian: Armenian Church (Patriarchal);

Chaldean (Syro-Oriental): Chaldean Church (Patriarchal), Syro-Malabar Church (Major Archiepiscopal)

Byzantine (Constantinian): Albanese Church, Belarussian Church, Bulgarian, Croation Church (Episcopal), Greek Church, Greek-Melkite (Patriarchal), Hungarian Church (Episcopal), Italo-Albanese (Episcopal), Macedonian, Romanian Church (Major Archiepiscopal), Ruthenian Church (Archiepiscopal), Slovak Church (Major Archiepiscopal), Ukrainian Church (Major Archiepiscopal).

With the exception of most of the Byzantine Rite Churches, the association with the Middle East should be obvious.

NOTE: In the West, there is only one real Patriarch, the Pope. However, there are two minor Patriarchatess: the Patriarch of Venice (dating from 1457) and the Patriarch of Lisbon (October 22, 1716, and the Golden Bull In Supremo Apostolatus Solio). In the Latin Rite there are also the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Patriarch of the East Indies [dating from 1886, the Archbishop of Goa and Damão, India].  

The Pope in the Lebanon: Part One: How I First Heard of the Oriental Catholic Churches Because of Cardinal Heard

While there was much speculation in the press and broadcast media that this weekend’s Apostolic Pilgrimage of Pope Benedict to the Lebanon might be called off because of security concerns, there was never really any chance of that. There IS a thing called Heroic Virtue, it just isn’t always exhibited in otherworldly, overtly saintly ways. And Papa Ratzinger has it in spades.

Prior to his Apostolic Pilgrimage this weekend, Pope Benedict XVI has visited the Middle East on three occasions: November 28 – December 1, 2006, to Turkey; May 8 – 15, 2009, to Jordan, Israel and Palestine, and; June 4 – 6, 2010, to Cyprus. None of these voyages, to use the Vatican’s quaint descriptor, was risk free. In any sense.

But why should I, a working class guy from the West of Scotland, have any interest in the Church in the Middle East?

About twenty years ago, a bit less, I set out to write an essay on Scotland’s “unheard of Cardinal Heard” (well, that’s how it seemed at the time; it’s worse now). In late 1994, on reading the various newspaper reports and comments upon the announcement of Cardinal Winning’s elevation, I was struck by the fact that although there were the obvious references to Cardinal Gray, and in some articles references to Cardinals Beaton and Erskine, and even in one newspaper to the Cardinal Duke of York, there was a total absence of any reference whatsoever to Cardinal Heard. He seemed to have become Scotland’s “forgotten cardinal” and in my mind he soon became “the unheard of Cardinal Heard”.

A couple of years later, I received an invitation to be part of the audience at a recording of a Kirsty Wark programme for BBC Scotland. I was supposed to be a bit of an expert on the issue of Catholic Schools. In preparation, I betook myself to the very wonderful Mitchell Library in Glasgow (the biggest public reference library in Europe). I was reading some material relating to the background to the passing of, and to the subsequent operation of, the Education (Scotland) Act of 1918, when, on trawling through the 1960 issues of The Glasgow Herald, I came across an article which, although of no relevance to the matter at hand, nonetheless grabbed my attention.

(As it turned out, nothing was of any relevance to what actually happened on the TV show. I ended up speaking about Scotland’s legal system in light of the verdict handed down that day in the appeals of Thomas “T C” Campbell and Joe Steele, the two men convicted of the heinous murder of the Doyle family during the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars. That day, contrary to all expectations, they lost their appeals. They were subsequently released some time later when those occupying the very highest reaches of the Scottish legal system were finally able to accept that even policemen, even in the CID, tell lies. Even under oath.)

The article I had stumbled across was a report of the appointment of Monsignor Gerard M Rogers, Vicar General of the Diocese of Motherwell and administrator of Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral, Motherwell, as an auditor, judge, of the Sacred Roman Rota Appeal Tribunal in Rome. I hadn’t been a reader of The Glasgow Herald when I was eight years old, and so this was new to me. But It wasn’t news to me.

I had attended Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School in Motherwell. Mgr Rogers had been a frequent visitor in his role as Parish Priest. Six years after Mgr Rogers departed Motherwell for Rome — I’ll save you doing the arithmetic, I was 14 at the time now in question — we got a new PP in my own parish, St Luke’s, Forgewood. And he came to us all the way from Rome. This was a friend of my late father’s, a certain Fr Tam Winning.  

His later, and now sadly late, Eminence had been a junior colleague of Mgr Rogers before following him to Rome in 1961 when he was appointed Spiritual Director to the students of the Scots College. (Oor Tam was the Bishop’s secretary; and the bishop was Mgr James Donald Scanlan, later Archbishop of Glasgow, whom Oor Tam would succeed.) While in Rome, apart from fulfilling his duties in the Scots College, His Eminence studied at the Rota studuum, a sort of post-Doctoral Law School run by the judges of the Rota to train consistorial advocates. Cardinal Winning qualified as an Advocate of the Sacred Roman Rota (Adv SRR) in 1965.

One Sunday after twelve o’clock Mass, the then Fr Winning discussed with me Mgr Rogers’s work in the Vatican and a little about how he had come to be appointed. This discussion arose as a result of an article appearing that morning in one of the Sunday newspaper colour supplements (the Sunday Express, I suppose, as that was my dad’s paper of choice: he did the crossword; it was a perfectly respectable paper in those days). It quoted from an unidentified, but all-too-easily identifiable, curial priest. In ruefully ironic terms, he discussed having been taken away from his parish work and summoned to Rome having been identified by the Vatican as a particularly well-qualified lawyer. This was obviously Mgr Rogers LlB (Glas), DCL, PhD, DD (all the Greg, all summa cum laude; same as Cardinal Heard).

Although I was already aware of the existence of Cardinal Heard ― in 1960, the year after his elevation, on a visit to Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary School, Motherwell, organised by his friend Mgr Scanlan, Cardinal Heard had spoken to my class as we were the First Communion Class ― it was in the course of this conversation that I first become aware of how eminent (I know) and influential within the Vatican the Cardinal had been.

Over the years I learned a little more about Cardinal Heard, most especially from University friends who had been students at the Scots College in Rome. Among these former candidates for the priesthood, the late Cardinal enjoyed a reputation as a “bit of a character”. They recalled most especially his visits to the College on the feast day of Scotland’s patron, St Andrew. I formed a vague determination to find out, some time, more about this little-known Prince of the Church. So, on reading the various newspaper reports and comments upon the announcement of Cardinal Winning’s elevation, I decided to write an essay on him.

(I should, perhaps, note for posterity that in the course of an interview kindly granted to me by my old PP, Cardinal Winning, when I was researching my essay, it was made plain that Cardinal Heard had personally secured Mgr Rogers’s appointment to the Rota in the face of attempts by a person or persons unknown, but presumably either a member of the Scottish hierarchy or someone with great influence within it – His Eminence wouldn’t say – to block it.)

And it was in researching that essay that I first found out about the Eastern Rite churches in communion with Rome. Although that’s not quite true, but when I first heard of them I was totally unaware of what I had just heard. That was because it was a mere aside, a jocular chaplain’s obiter dicta, as it were. And before you ask, I didn’t then know what an obiter dicta was.

It was my final year at Our Lady’s High School, Motherwell, alma mater of Cardinal Winning, Billy McNeil and Bobby Murdoch (for the latter two see the European Cup 1967). We had been digging up our chaplain, Fr, later Mgr, Jack Burns about priests not being allowed to get married. After explaining about celibacy, he mentioned, en passant, that his fellow students among “the Greeks” when he was a student in Rome were allowed to go home during the summer before their last year in Rome and get married before they were ordained as deacons. We just assumed, and were perplexed by the assumption, that for some reason prospective Greek Orthodox priests were being educated in Rome. Sadly, we never had the opportunity of pursuing this with him or I might have been better advised sooner.

Eventually, let’s say 35 years later at least. His Excellency Mgr William Theodore Heard, Dean of the Sacred Roman Rota, was named Cardinal by Good Pope John on December 15, 1959. His Holiness later appointed him a member of the Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments, the Sacred Congregation for Rites, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and as one of three Cardinal Consultants to the Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of the Code of Canon Law.

And Good Pope John also named him Editor of the Code of Canon Law for the Oriental Church. When I first read this, my immediate reaction was: “A different Code of Canon Law for Catholics in the Far East? Why? And, by the way, what is a Code of Canon Law?”