In 1987, he headed the delegation of observers of the Holy
See to the Conference of Foreign Ministers of the Movement of Non-Aligned
Countries in Pyongyang,
North Korea where he was the first Catholic priest to be able to visit the
small Catholic community of that country, isolated since the Korean War. On 17
October 1987, Pope John Paul II appointed him Apostolic
Nuncio to Ghana,
Togo and Benin.
On 12 January 1991, he was transferred to Rwanda, where
1994 saw the most dramatic phase of the war between the Hutus and Tutsis. In March 1995, John Paul II appointed him to
the United Nations in Geneva. He held the post of Permanent
Observer of Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva from 1997, with
the same role at the World Trade Organization. Upon his
appointment Bertello negotiated the ingress of the Holy See as permanent
observer, in the World Trade Organization, becoming its first representative.
On 27 December 2000, the Pope entrusted him with another
task, that of Apostolic Nuncio to Mexico. On 30 July
2002, he received the Pope arriving on an apostolic visit in the country for
the canonization
of Juan Diego. In 2007, Bertello was
appointed to the prestigious post of apostolic nuncio to Italy and the Republic of San Marino by Pope Benedict
XVI. In 2008 Archbishop Bertello was awarded the Knight Grand Cross
of the Order of Merit of the Italian
Republic. On 3 September 2011, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Archbishop
Bertello President of
the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State and President of
the Governorate of Vatican City State.
Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa is a Chilean Cardinal and the Archbishop Emeritus of
Santiago. He is of Basque
descent.
He was ordained as a priest for the Schönstatt
Fathers on 16 July 1961. From 1963 to 1965, Errázuriz was consultor of youth
communities and university students in several cities in Chile. He served as
Regional Superior in Chile of the Secular Institute of Fathers of Schönstatt, a
position he held from 1965 to 1971. In 1971 was called to serve his community's
General Council in Germany. In 1974, he was elected Superior General of the Schönstatt
Fathers, re-elected in 1980 and 1986. Because of his post, he conducted
multiple pastoral visits to Europe, America, Africa and Australia. and then
became a chaplain in the Schönstatt Movement. On 22 December 1990, Errázuriz
Ossa was appointed secretary of the Congregation
for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. He
was named bishop of Valparaíso, Chile, on 24
September 1996. He attended the Special Assembly for America of the World Synod
of Bishops, Vatican City in 1997. He was transferred to the metropolitan see of
Archdiocese of Santiago, on 24 April 1998 and became the Grand chancellor of
the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile the same year. He was elected
president of the Chilean Episcopal Conference for three years, on 20 November
1998; and reelected, on 16 November 2001. He was elected first vice-president
of the Latin American Episcopal Council
(CELAM), on 13 May 1999.
He was created Cardinal in the consistory of 21 February
2001 by Pope John Paul II. He was elected president of
the Episcopal Council of Latin America (CELAM), for the term from 2003 to 2007
on 16 May 2003. During his time as cardinal, Ossa refused to meet with those
who claimed to have been abused by clergymen. He also refused public calls for
an investigation of Father Fernando
Karadima and the issue of clergy sexual abuse more generally. Father
Fernando was later found to have been an abuser and was forced into retirement.
Cardinal Ossa's resignation as Archbishop of Santiago was accepted on 15
December 2010.
Oswald
Gracias is a Goan Cardinal and the Archbishop of Bombay. In 2010, he was elected as the president of
the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India
(having been the vice-president from 2008). Gracias was ordained
to the priesthood on 20 December 1970. From 1971 to 1976, he served as Chancellor and secretary to Bishop Joseph
Rodericks, SJ, of Jamshedpur.
He obtained a doctorate in canon law, a diploma in jurisprudence.
Upon his return to Bombay, he was named chancellor, judge of the metropolitan tribunal, and judicial
vicar. From 1982, he was the chancellor of the Archdiocese of
Mumbai, and from 1988 he was the judicial
vicar for the Archdiocese. In 1991, Gracias was made archdiocesan
consultor.
He also served as a visiting professor to the seminaries of Bombay, Poona, and Bangalore,
as well as serving as President of the Canon Law Society of India. On 28 June 1997,
Gracias was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Bombay. Gracias was later
named Archbishop of Agra on 7
September 2000 and Archbishop of Bombay on 14
October 2006. He also served as Secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India
(CBCI), and is currently the President of the Conference of Catholic Bishop in
India (Latin rite).
At the consistory in St. Peter's Basilica on 24 November 2007,
he was created Cardinal-Priest of S. Paolo della Croce a
"Corviale". On 20 February 2008 Cardinal Gracias was
elected 1st Vice President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI)
of which had earlier served as Secretary General. In May 2008 Pope Benedict
named him a member of the Pontifical Council for Legislative
Texts and, on 6 July 2010, of the Congregation
for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Cardinal
Oswald Gracias was elected Secretary General FABC
and President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India
by the presidents of the Federation of Asian Bishops'
Conferences. The FABC is an apex body representing 19 Bishop's
Conferences comprising 28 of their Asian member countries like the other
Bishops' Conferences of South America, Europe, Africa and Oceania. The
Federation coordinates the work of the Church in these countries and represents
Asia before the Vatican and Government authorities.
On 29 December 2011 he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for Social
Communications for a five-year renewable term. On 12 June 2012 Cardinal
Gracias was appointed a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education.
On 18 September 2012 Cardinal Gracias was appointed by Pope Benedict
XVI to serve as one of the papally-appointed Synod Fathers for the
October 2012 Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the New
Evangelization.
Reinhard
Marx is a German Cardinal and serves as incumbent archbishop of Munich and Freising.
Pope Benedict XVI elevated Cardinal Marx to the
cardinalate in a consistory on 20 November 2010. At the time of his elevation,
Cardinal Marx became the youngest member of the College of Cardinals. Cardinal Marx was ordained
to the priesthood, for the Archdiocese of Paderborn on 2 June 1979.
He obtained a doctorate in theology, from the University of Bochum in 1989. On 23 July
1996, he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Paderborn and was ordained
as bishop on the following 21 September (his forty-third birthday).
On 20 December 2001 he was named Bishop of Trier (the
oldest diocese
in Germany). Marx is considered to be rather conservative in matters of Church
discipline, but also a "social scientist ... and whiz with the
media". In 2003 he suspended a theologian
for extending to Protestants an invitation to the Eucharist.
On 30 November 2007 Pope Benedict
XVI appointed Reinhard Marx as Metropolitan Archbishop of Munich and
Freising, a position that Benedict himself held from 1977 to 1981. On 2
February 2008, Marx was installed as Archbishop of Munich and Freising in the Munich Frauenkirche. He became Cardinal-Priest
of San Corbiniano on 20 November 2010. Cardinal Marx currently serves as
head of the committee for social issues at the German Bishops' Conference.
In addition to his duties as archbishop of Munich on 11 December 2010, Cardinal
Marx was named by Pope Benedict as a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education
for a five-year renewable term. On 29 December 2010 he was appointed a member
of the Pontifical Council for Justice and
Peace. On 7 March 2012 he was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Oriental
Churches. On 22 March 2012, the Commission of
the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community elected Reinhard
Cardinal Marx its president.
Laurent
Monsengwo Pasinya is an African Cardinal, Archbishop of Kinshasa and
de facto primate of the Democratic Republic of Congo since his
appointment by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007. He belongs to one of
the royal families of Basakata; his second name, Monsengwo, means
"nephew of the traditional chief". He was sent to Rome to attend the Pontifical Urbaniana University,
and the Pontifical Biblical Institute. He also
studied at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem,
where he was awarded a doctorate in biblical studies. He is the first African
to obtain such a doctorate. He was ordained
to the priesthood on 21 December 1963 in Rome. After his ordination he did
pastoral work and served as a faculty member at the Theological Faculty of
Kinshasa for several years. He served as secretary-general of the Congolese
Episcopal Conference from 1976 to 1980.
Pope John Paul II appointed him Auxiliary
Bishop of Kisangani on 13 February
1980. He served as president of the Congolese Episcopal Conference, in 1980 and
again in 1992. He was appointed Metropoliltan Archbishop of Kisangani on 1
September 1988. When dictator Mobutu Sese
Seko was losing his grip on power in the mid-1990s, the country
needed someone of unimpeachable integrity to engineer the transition.
Archbishop Monsengwo Pasinya was appointed as president of the Sovereign
National Conference in 1991, president of the High Council of the Republic in
1992 and speaker of a Transitional Parliament in 1994. He was widely seen as a
champion of peace, dialogue and human rights. He has been serving as
Co-President of Pax Christi International since 3 November
2007. He was transferred to the metropolitan see of Kinshasa by Pope Benedict
on 6 December 2007.
On 20 November 2010 Pope Benedict made him Cardinal-Priest
of Santa Maria Regina Pacis in Ostia mare. In December 2010, Pope
Benedict named him a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education,
on 10 December 2011 of the Pontifical Council for Culture,
on 29 December 2011 of the Pontifical Council for Social
Communications. and on 5 March 2012 of the Congregation for the Evangelization
of Peoples. Cardinal Monsengwo Pasinya spoke of the 2011 election
saying "It should be concluded that the results do not conform to truth
nor justice".
Seán
Patrick O'Malley, is an American Cardinal who serves as the Archbishop of Boston. He is
a member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin,
commonly known as the Capuchins. He attended
Capuchin
College in Washington, D.C. and The Catholic University of America,
where he is now a member of the Board of
Trustees. He was ordained
a priest on August 29, 1970, at age 26. He
graduated from CUA with a master's
degree in religious education and a Ph.D. in Spanish and Portuguese literature. In 1973, he was
asked to minister to Latinos living in the D.C. area at the Centro
Católico Hispano. He opened a Spanish
bookstore and founded El Pregonero, the first Spanish newspaper
in the D.C. area. In 1978, Cardinal William Wakefield Baum appointed him episcopal
vicar for the Portuguese, Hispanic, and Haitian communities, and
he became the executive director of the archdiocesan Office of Social Ministry.
He was also named knight commander of the Order of Infante D. Henrique by Portugal
in 1985 for his service to its people.
O'Malley was appointed coadjutor
bishop of the Diocese of Saint Thomas on
May 30, 1984 by Pope John Paul II. He served as coadjutor for
one year and then succeeded Bishop Harper as Bishop of Saint Thomas on October
16, 1985, upon Harper's resignation. While in the Virgin
Islands, he worked with the homeless,
and opened a home for people with AIDS. He was made an honorary chaplain
of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta
in 1991.
On June 16, 1992, Bishop O'Malley was chosen to head the
Diocese of Fall River. As Bishop of Fall River, O'Malley first attempted to
settle the sexual abuse scandal in Fall River
diocese. In Palm Beach, he tried to overcome the abuse scandal there too.
He also worked closely with the Portuguese and Hispanic population, which make
up a large percentage of the Catholics in the United States. In 1998 John Paul
II appointed O'Malley to the Special Assembly for Oceania
of the Synod of
Bishops. In 2003, he became the archbishop of Boston, succeeding
Cardinal Bernard Law,
who had resigned as a consequence of the scandal there.
O'Malley was named as a member of both the Congregation for the Clergy and the Congregation
for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life
in the Roman Curia.
In late September 2009, he became a member of the Presidential Council of the Pontifical Council for the Family.
Cardinal O'Malley was named along with others to oversee the apostolic visitation of certain dioceses
and seminaries
in Ireland.
Cardinal O'Malley was named as the Visitor to the Archdiocese of Dublin and
its suffragan sees, Ferns and Ossory and Kildare and Leighlin. He
will report back to the Holy See on what steps have been taken since the
reports were issued, and what else needs to happen.
George Pell
is an Australian
Cardinal and the current Archbishop of Sydney,
serving since 2001. He previously served as auxiliary
bishop (1987–96) and archbishop
(1996–2001) of the Archdiocese of Melbourne. In
1960, he began his priestly studies at Corpus Christi College. One
of his fellow seminarians at Corpus Christi was Denis Hart,
Pell's future successor as Archbishop of Melbourne.
In 1963, he was assigned to continue his studies at the Pontifical Urbaniana University
in Rome.
On 16 December 1966, Pell was ordained a priest. He received a Licentiate of Sacred Theology from the
Urbaniana University in 1967
He continued his studies at the University of Oxford, where he earned a DPhil in church history in 1971.
During his studies at Oxford, he
also served as a chaplain to Catholic students at Eton College,
where he celebrated the first Roman Catholic Mass
since the English Reformation. In 1971, he returned to Australia and was assigned to serve as an
assistant
priest in Swan Hill, where he remained for two years. He
then served at a parish in Ballarat East from 1973 to 1983, becoming
administrator of the parish of Bungaree in 1984. In 1982, he earned a Master of Education degree from Monash
University in Melbourne. During his tenure in Ballarat East and
Bungaree, he also served as Episcopal Vicar for Education (1973–84),
director of the Aquinas campus of the Institute of Catholic Education (1974–84)
and principal of the Institute of Catholic Education (1981–84).
From 1985 to 1987, Pell served as seminary rector of his alma mater, Corpus
Christi College. Pell was appointed an auxiliary
bishop of Melbourne on 30 March 1987. He served as
Bishop for the Southern Region of Melbourne (1987–96). During this time, he was
a parish priest in Mentone. Pell was named seventh Archbishop of Melbourne on 16 July 1996, and
was later appointed eighth Archbishop of Sydney on 26
March 2001 and again received the pallium from John Paul on 29 June 2001. Pell
was a consultor of the Pontifical Council for Justice and
Peace from 1990 to 1995 and a member from 2002. From 1990 to 2000 he
was a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith.
In 2006 Pell made a successful bid for Sydney to host the 2008 World Youth Day, On 18 September
2012, Pell was named by Pope Benedict XVI to be one of the
papally-appointed Synod Fathers for the October 2012 Ordinary General Assembly
of the Synod of Bishops on the New
Evangelization. He was the only cardinal from Oceania
to take part in the 2013 papal conclave.
Óscar
Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, SDB is a Honduran
Cardinal and the current Archbishop of Tegucigalpa,
President of Caritas Internationalis and was President of
the Latin American Episcopal Conference
(CELAM) from 1995 to 1999. He was the Vatican's
spokesperson with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank,
on the issue of Third World debt. He joined the Salesians on May 3, 1961 and earned doctorates
in philosophy
from the Institute "Don Rua" in El Salvador,
in theology
from the Salesian Pontifical University
in Rome,
and moral theology from the Pontifical Lateran University.
From the Austrian University of Innsbruck
Rodríguez received a diploma in clinical psychology and psychotherapy.
He was ordained
a priest on July 28, 1970 in Guatemala City.
Father Rodríguez was named the bishop's assistant in Tegucigalpa in 1970 and was
rector for three years at Guatemala's Francisco Marroquín University
from 1975. During this time he also became a professor of moral theology and ecclesiology
at the Salesian Theological Institute in Guatemala.
On
October 28, 1978, Rodríguez was named auxiliary
bishop of Tegucigalpa and was named Archbishop of Tegucigalpa on
January 8, 1993.
Archbishop Rodríguez was created on 21 February 2001 and is
the first cardinal from Honduras
He is currently the President of the Episcopal Conference of
Honduras. Cardinal Rodríguez was elected on 5 June 2007 as the new Caritas
Internationalis President by the Caritas Confederation members at their 18th General
Assembly in Vatican City and was reelected 24 May 2011. On 12 June 2012
Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga was appointed a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education
for a five year renewable term.
Rodríguez was the Vatican's
spokesperson with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
on the issue of Third World debt, and has encouraged countries
to give development aid.
He has said that a politician who publicly supports abortion
excommunicates himself, and that it's not question of receiving Communion or
not, since he has already done serious harm to the communion of faith of the
Church.
