Posted on 07/11/2002 6:10:07 AM PDT by NYer
VATICAN CITY (AP) _ Genoa's cardinal, who is often mentioned as a top candidate to succeed Pope John Paul II, has been chosen by the pontiff to head the Milan archdiocese, a prestigious and highly visible posting.
The Vatican said Thursday that John Paul named Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi to replace Cardinal Maria Martini, who is retiring because of age. Martini, 75, has been serving in Milan, Italy's financial and business capital, since in 1979.
Tettamanzi, 68, is considered a moderate and a rising figure in the Italian Church and seen by many observers as a strong candidate to replace John Paul.
Many Vatican watchers have theorized that after more than two decades of a non-Italian as pope, there will be a strong push among the voting cardinals to return the papacy to Italians, who had held sway for centuries and who still dominate the Vatican's bureaucracy.
Tettamanzi's Church career was highly visible from the start. He was ordained a priest in 1957 by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, who would go on to become Pope Paul VI.
Tettamanzi was raised to bishop's rank in 1989, posted in Milan, and he was elevated to cardinal's rank by the pope in 1998, three years after being posted in Genoa, a largely blue collar port city. A long-time professor of theology, including moral theology, Tettamanzi was praised in the Vatican's appointment announcement for the ``clarity and depth'' of his thought in his theological teaching and for his loyalty to Church teaching.
Martini, whose veiled calls for change in the Church had endeared him to the minority of liberals among fellow cardinals, is a thoughtful man who, rather uncharacteristically for high-ranking churchmen, is quite straightforward in speaking with the media. He was widely seen as having the qualities to be a pope.
But earlier this year, he acknowledged he had health problems, and has said he hopes to move to Jerusalem to dedicate himself to prayer after his retirement from Milan.
AP-ES-07-11-02 0836EDT
Guess we know where he stands on women ordinations!
This would imply that the individual was already a cardinal.
John Paul allegedly responded: "I have not yet nominated the cardinal who will be my successor."
This statement would rule out Cardinal Tettamanzi who is already a cardinal.
How does JPII know who will be his successor? Now that's an interesting question.
Learning something every day. Had to look that one up in the dictionary! LOL!
Very interesting!
Here are some statistics on the cardinal's new diocese + some more appointments, made today.
VATICAN CITY, JUL 11, 2002 (VIS) - The Holy Father:
- Appointed Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, archbishop of Genova, Italy, as metropolitan archbishop of Milan (area 4,243, population 5,089,148, Catholics 4,789,148, priests 3,188, permanent deacons 32, religious 8,582), Italy. He succeeds Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, S.J., whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted upon having reached the age limit.
- Appointed Fr. Valentino Di Cerbo, official in the Secretariat of State, as bureau chief of the Section for General Affairs.
- Appointed Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux, France, as a member of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei".
A prominent Italian candidate is Dionigi Tettamanzi of Genoa . In the future, he may be chosen as cardinal of Milan, Italy, which is important as the largest archdiocese in Italy. He is considered to be close to Opus Dei, a flourishing movement in the Church known for its theological orthodoxy and good works for the poor.[v] Opus Dei was founded by Spanish priest Josemaria Escriva as a means to form the laity in holiness of life. Escriva was a highly orthodox and traditional Catholic who anticipated Vatican II’s call to holiness for the laity in their everyday lives in the secular world and who will be canonized in late 2002. Tettamanzi has also spoken out forcefully against the call by some European liberals for more collegiality to facilitate changing Church teaching on sexual morality and other issues.[vi] Most significantly, he is thought to have assisted in the preparation of John Paul’s great encyclical on moral issues, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) in which the pope took strong stands against moral relativism and against the culture of death.[vii]
According to their web site:
The commission has a president, Cardinal Angelo Felici, a secretary, Msgr. Camille Perl, and several assistants. A group of "permanent experts" composed of representatives of the dicasteries concerned offer their advice and expertise.
Are we to conclude that Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux, France is an "assistant" or a "representative"?
AMEN!
It's obvious that our Holy Father is still in command!
The cardinal is Dionigi Tettamanzi, the Archbishop of Genoa; and the victim of his outburst is none other than Satan.
"He is the enemy," insisted Tettamanzi, "and the cause of every affliction on humanity." Admittedly he is "very intelligent, astute and charming," but he is, as the title of the cardinal's Lenten letter proclaims, "The Great Tempter".
It is not the anti-diabolism of this assault that has ruffled ecclesiastical feathers, so much as the great man's insistence that the Devil is alive, well and entirely real.
This is not a terribly popular doctrine these days. The sceptic in the street finds it as hard to swallow as a wafer full of flesh and blood, and the church has been happy to let sleeping dogmas lie, allowing individuals to decide whether Old Nick is a personification of human evil or a red fellow with a big fork.
But not Tettamanzi. He has devised a 10-point plan to combat the wiles of the evil one, and in at number one is: "Do not forget that the Devil exists."
It has been suggested that Tettamanzi is drawing attention to himself as a frontrunner in the race for the papacy (such publicity might compensate for the fact that he is terminally boring and that his name is Italian for "Bull's tits".)
But such self-glorifying motives can be safely discounted when you consider that point 10 of his plan is "Be humble and love mortification."
As Tettamanzi reminds us, "He is a liar, and his greatest lie is that he does not exist." So if you don't believe in his perfidious machinations, that only proves how effective they are.
They're very cunning these lords of evil.
Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, 66, the archbishop of Genoa, dedicated his lenten letter to combating the fascination of a devil who is charming, shrewd and very real.
Those who follow his 10-step programme are promised the ability to rebuff offers of forbidden fruit, unlike Adam and Eve.
First rule: "Do not forget that the devil exists."
Rule two: "Do not forget that the devil is a tempter."
Rule three: "Do not forget that the devil is very intelligent and astute."
Cardinal Tettamanzi, widely seen as a conservative frontrunner to succeed the Pope, urges permanent watchfulness. "Be vigilant in the eyes and the heart. Be strong in spirit and virtue."
Another five rules recommend tireless prayer, adoring God, listening to His words, remembering Christ's victory over temptation and man's sharing in that victory.
Obeying the tenth rule, though, should seal the devil's defeat: "Be humble and love mortification."
Cardinal Tettamanzi is a moral theologian who has helped the Pope write encyclicals. The pastoral letter raised his profile as the candidates jockey to replace the ailing pontiff, 81 in May.
The Milan-based Theological Studies Centre, which is independent of the Vatican, condemned the letter for bringing Satan back into the realm of human responsibility.
By raising the spectre of diabolical machinations rather than human evil, the cardinal was reaching back into the middle ages and ignoring scientific advances in psychology, the centre claimed.
"To attribute guilt to the devil could encourage people to be irresponsible," it said.
According to La Repubblica, the centre also accused the church of having exploited Satan in centuries past to persecute heretics and cultural minorities, such as gays.
In recent decades, the role of the devil has become a fraught topic in theology, splitting those who believe he is real and those who believe he symbolises mankind's capacity for evil.
Also known as Lucifer and Beelzebub, according to the Bible he is a fallen angel who sinned by pride and was banished from heaven.
He is allowed by God to exercise influence on living and inanimate creatures - tempting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and Jesus in the wilderness.
The Italian Bishops Conference has recently agonised about how to address the devil during exorcisms following a Vatican decision to translate into Italian the venerable Latin formula, Vade retro Satanas.
Bishops were unsure which form of "you" to use - the familiar "tu" or formal "lei".
We should never forget. While it is right to focus on the love and mercy of God, we must never forget that the devil is right there trying to get us to turn our back on God.
Too many Christian religions -- including Catholicism -- do not remind parishoners that the devil is alive and well and tempting them every day.
But we've always known that!
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