Pope Contender: Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Italy
Apr 17, 2005
Throughout his steadily rising church career, Milan Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi has had a knack of being in the right place at the right time.
(Associated Press, April 16th, 2005) The outcome of the secret conclave of cardinals to elect the next pope will tell whether that pattern still holds for Tettamanzi, the favorite of many of those who think the papacy will return to the Italians after the 26-year tenure of a Polish pope broke their 455-year hold on the papacy.
A 71-year-old theologian whom John Paul II often consulted, Tettamanzi is a moderate, but his staunch defense of the pope’s teaching against abortion and euthanasia and other moral positions could win over conservatives.
Tettamanzi’s first bishop’s post, in the Adriatic town of Ancona, was in a diocese near the Loreto shrine so dear to John Paul that the pontiff visited it five times.
Later Tettamanzi was cardinal in Genoa — boldly questioning the impact of globalization on the working class — when that port city came under the world spotlight during the riot-scarred G-8 summit in 2001.
And as the moment nears for cardinals to size each other up and decide who should shepherd the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, Tettamanzi leads Italy’s high-profile archdiocese of Milan.
John Paul appointed him to the post in July 2002, four years after elevating him to cardinal’s rank.
Tettamanzi worked on two of John Paul’s most important encyclicals and is considered among the ghostwriters. One of encyclicals, the 1993 “Splendor of Truth,” defended absolute morals against liberal theologians.
The other was the 1995 “Evangelium Vitae” in which the pope denounced a “culture of death” and delivered the church’s most forceful condemnation of abortion, euthanasia and experimentation on human embryos. It also restated the Vatican’s ban on birth control.
Tettamanzi’s help in projecting an unwavering Vatican defense of traditional teaching on moral issues might turn off progressive thinkers among the voting cardinals, although, with most of them appointed by conservative John Paul, his staunch defense of church teaching would likely gain him many points.
Pope Contender: Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Italy