In late , five months before John Paul died, Ratzinger bolted from Sodano's control and ordered the investigation of Maciel that would culminate in his dismissal after the cardinal became pope. Even then, Sodano made sure the language of the papal decree singled out the Legion of Christ for praise without a word of consolation to victims.
On Dec. In his 16 years as Secretary of State, the Vatican equivalent of a prime minister, Sodano kept an iron grip on the Roman Curia, or papal bureaucracy. He promoted the careers of many Vatican diplomats who maintained their loyalty.
Sodano wanted silence, no questioning of the brotherhood which included cardinal-archbishops. At the time, he prevailed. That is what you say! Benedict shared Sodano's notion of a brotherhood; he disliked seeing grievances made public. The tide was turning against Sodano. Survivors in many countries, linked by the internet, intensified demands for justice that emboldened newsrooms, prosecutors, legislators and the courts.
Today, bishops and cardinals face legal pressure they never remotely imagined, particularly in Mexico and Chile. Benedict's failure to resolve the abuse crisis extended to his faltering control of the Curia. When the Vatileaks scandal exploded in , and the discovery that his own butler had leaked sensitive papal documents, Benedict realized he lacked the power to engineer reform, and announced his historic retirement. Ironically, Sodano, as Dean of the College of Cardinals, played a key role at the conclave to the benefit of Cardinal Bergoglio, who had finished second to Ratzinger in the voting in Though 84 by then, and well beyond the voting age of 75, Sodano controlled the agenda of the cardinals' meetings over several days before they entered the Sistine Chapel for the secret voting.
Perhaps that base support is why it took so long for a reform pope, engineering canon law changes to undercut de facto immunity of the brotherhood, to finally sack Sodano.
Events in Chile were surely a factor. Many years before, Sodano as nuncio socialized with Karadima, pastor of an affluent parish that Pinochet officials attended.
Sodano vouched for Barros as bishop. On the day of his installation in Osorno, demonstrators cried , "Barros, get out of the city! Sodano's idea of a high ecclesial brotherhood was being hammered in Chile. After meeting with three of Karadima's victims in Rome, including Juan Carlos Cruz, a national figure in in Chile for his activism and a gripping memoir, Francis changed his mind, ordered an investigation by Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the canon lawyer who built the case against Maciel.
Scicluna's voluminous report caused Francis to make an even sharper turn in his view of the Chilean church's swamp of scandals. The nation's 31 bishops tendered their resignations, something unheard of in modern church history.
He has accepted nine to date, included Barros' notice. Chile's scandal-mired bishops were a blow to Sodano's credibility, given his role in choosing many of them. Angelo Sodano personified a fortress-church mentality eroding before our eyes. The day before the Vatican issued the pope's statement on Sodano, the Associated Press reported that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office in which Carinal Ratzinger in consolidated responsibility for hearings to defrock pedophiles, had processed 6, cases.
Was it mere coincidence that on the day of Sodano's exit, the Legion of Christ, whose money he took and interests he long championed, announced an internal investigation of abuse with the order? What impeccable timing.
The cardinal bishops historically were those who had titular dioceses near Rome rather than titular churches inside the city. In , Pope Francis added four more cardinals: the Vatican secretary of state and the prefects of the congregations for Eastern Churches, Bishops and the Evangelisation of Peoples.
Generally, the cardinal priests are cardinals who are diocesan bishops, while cardinal deacons are other cardinals working in the Roman Curia. Pope Francis reaffirmed the practice that the cardinal bishops elect the dean, who presides over the College of Cardinals and has special duties when a Pope dies or resigns. The dean is charged with officially informing the other cardinals and heads of state that a Pope has died; he establishes the date the cardinals will begin their "general congregations" to discuss the current status and needs of the church; and he presides over those meetings before the cardinals enter the conclave to elect a new Pope.
If the dean is under the age of 80 and therefore eligible to enter the conclave, he issues the oath of secrecy to the cardinals and determines whether the college is ready to begin the election. He also is the one who asks the person elected if he accepts and what name he wishes to use.
In Chile, he worked for 10 years visiting nearly every diocese and cooperating also in the happy conclusion of the pontifical mediation between Chile and Argentina, for the peaceful solution to the controversy over the sovereignty of the 2 States in some zones of the austral territory.
On 1 March , with the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus becoming effective, he then assumed the title of Secretary for the Relationship with States. He has even dedicated particular attention to the Pontifical Commission for Russia, of which he was President.
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