Cardinal Re: "Paul VI. Had Prepared Two Letters of Resignation"

Cardinal Re and Cardinal Sodano (right) -- Today Deacon and
Subdeacon of the Cardinal Collegium -- Immediately After Pope Benedict's Resignation

(Rome) Had Pope Paul VI. already prepared for resignation? This is what Giovanni Battista Cardinal Re claimed in a long interview with the magazine Araberara, which was released yesterday.

The former prefect of the Congregation for the Bishops and the present Subdeacon of the Cardinal Collegium tells of "his" six popes, revealing a hitherto unknown detail.

Pope Paul VI, who ruled from 1963, died on 6 August 1978 of a heart attack. According to his closest collaborators, the abduction of his personal friend, the Italian Prime Minister and Christian Democrat politician Aldo Moro by the Communist Red Brigades (BR) had crushed him. The Pope had publicly offered himself to the terrorists as a hostage in exchange for Moro, but he was found murdered in a car on 9 May 1978.

Cardinal Re now revealed that Paul VI. had written two letters of resignation. The Cardinal does not make any connections. It is, however, to be assumed that they are directly related to the abduction of Moro and his readiness to be held hostage. Cardinal Re seems to be less concerned with the historical context, but with the current reference to a resignation of the Pope, which has been a subject of controversy since the unexpected resignation of Benedict XVI.

"At that time," said the Cardinal, church law did not foresee an apostate in the office of the Church, with the exception of the fact that the Cardinal's collegium assented to this. For this reason, Paul VI. wrote a letter of resignation, and sent a second letter to the Cardinal Dean, asking him to convince the Cardinal's collegium of the necessity releasing him from the Office.

Cardinal Re knew of these letters "because Pope John Paul II showed them to me."

The cardinal subdeacon  confirmed in the interview also a grueling stalemate, which was given in the two conclaves of the year 1978. Cardinal Secretary of State Giovanni Benelli and Cardinal Giuseppe Siri of Genoa were opposed to each other as opponents. Since neither Benelli nor Siri received sufficient votes to create the breakthrough, Patriarch Albino Luciani (John Paul I) and then the Archbishop of Krakow Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II) were elected as pope.

John Paul I said Cardinal Re: "He wanted to meet me and told me that he thought the papacy was too great a burden."

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Photo: Vatican.va (screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Cardinal Re: No Sacraments for the Remarried and Divorced

Emeritus Cardinal Re does not consider it possible to revise this legal requirement of the Church, for "an objective situation can not be changed".

Vatican City (kath.net / KNA) The emeritus Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re (80) does not believe that Pope Francis will remove the exclusion of remarried divorcees from the ecclesiastical sacraments. He does not consider it possible to revise this canonical rule, Re on Tuesday said to the Internet site Vatican Insider. "An objective situation can not be changed," said the former prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, who served as the highest-ranking cardinal the conclave for the election of Francis.

However, Francis  is  keen to improve the Church's pastoral care of the divorced and remarried, the cardinal stressed. This should be aimed to encourage those affected in their faith and to enable them to live in prayer, and with regular attendance at Sunday Mass. Currently being worked on are ways to make the Church's closeness to these people  more visible. [Scary, Divorcee Liturgies?]

Concern for the family is counted among the main topics of this pope.

The second major concern of the Pope was to strengthen the collegiality with the bishops, says Re, who also headed the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. But Francis would simplify the processes in the Synod of Bishops to make the interaction of the synod efficient. With regard to the reform of the Curia, over which the committee appointed by Francis of eight advisory Cardinals currently meeting at the Vatican, Re said it would take time and an intense reflection.

Re noted in the interview the positive balance of the first year pontificate. All over the world suggests  broad sympathy for Pope Francis, especially in the southern hemisphere. Francis had changed the style of the papacy, the Cardinal.

Link to Kath.net...a
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMGD

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re is (not) dead -- Dishonorable Role in the Case of Bishop Krenn and Msgr. Wagner?

(Rome)   The father of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Bishops, who had reached the age of 104 has died.  Pope Benedict XVI. has extended to the Cardinal and his family his condolences.  Matteo Re was the eldest of the the older members of the College of Cardinals.  He first saw the light of the world in 1908 in the Italian province of Brescia.

Because of his father's great age of the father, it was assumed that the Pope's consolation note was meant for the Cardinal's death, who celebrates his 79th birthday on January 30th of 2013.

From 2000 to 2010, he was part of the important Dicastry for the naming of Bishops in the so-called Old World.  At the Consistorium of 2001 he was raised to Cardinal by John Paul II.  Til then Re was a Curial Bishop from 1989 as a substitute to the Vatican Secretary of State.  His career was introduced in 1987 with his appointment as Secretary of the Bishops' Congregation.

For ten years Cardinal Re had significant influence in episcopal appointments in the "old" Christian nations.  At the age of 76 years on the end of the second five year time of office, he was replaced by the French Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet,  who was much closer to Ratzinger's way of thinking.

In Austria, Catholics who are true to Rome are stubbornly of the opinion that Cardinal Re played a dishonorable role in the resignation of Bishop Kurt Krenn of St. Pölten, as much as he played in the rejection of Auxiliary Bishop Gerhard Maria Wagner in Linz.  In both cases it was after a smear campaign inspired by the media, that progressive parts of the Church exerted massive pressure on the persons concerned, to reduce the exercise of the episcopal offices for the sake of internal ecclesiastical peace.  While part of the clergy campaigned in conjunction, the other Bishops refused solidarity to those attacked.

The Italian Cardinal Gioanni Battista Re was born in the 30th of January 1934, in Borno like his father.  in 1957, he received his priestly ordination in his home diocese of Brescia.  There is also only one vacant place remaining, which which would be vacant in a conclave.

Link to katholisches...