Born on the feast of the caring Saint Francis of Assisi
Apr 05, 2005
It is only fitting that the President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for the Care of Migrants and Itinerant People would be born on the feast of the caring Saint Francis of Assisi.
(Daily Catholic, February 26-28, 1999) Our twenty-fourth red hat we feature, in alphabetical order is Cardinal Giovanni Cheli, the Italian President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for the Care of Migrants and Itinerant People.
One of the oldest of the newest cardinals Cardinal Giovanni Cheli is President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, having resigned at eighty years-old last year.
Born on the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi in Turin, Italy, he became a priest at age 24 in 1942. After some time in pastoral work in his diocese, he was summoned to Rome where he entered the Secretariat of State diplomatic corp. He was named Second Secretary to the Apostolic Nunciature in Guatamala in 1952, a post he held until 1955 when he was appointed First Secretary to the Apostolic Nunciature in Spain for the next seven years.
In 1962 Pope John XXIII tabbed him as Councelor to the Nunciature in Rome until 1967 when Pope Paul VI named him to the Council for Public Affairs of the Church at the Vatican where he remained until 1973 when he was assigned to become Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations for the next thirteen years. On September 16,
1978 he was ordained a bishop and became titular Archbishop of Santa Giusta. In 1986 Pope John Paul II elevated him to the post of President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, a post he served faithfully for twelve years. He was named in the most recent Consistory of February 21, 1998, receiving his red-hat as a cardinal-deacon and receiving the titular church of Saints Cosmas and Damian.
Though he retired from active duty last year, he still maintains Curial membership in the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum" and the Pontifical Commission for Interreligious Dialogue. Due to his age he is no longer eligible to vote in the Conclave and also would most likely not be considered as papal possibility were an election held.
Fasting against the war in Iraq
Apr 05, 2005
John Paul II called for Friday, Dec. 14 2001, to be a day of fasting and prayer for peace. I arrived at the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, where several curial departments with offices in the nearby Piazza San Calisto had organized a service. These include the Council for Laity, Council for the Family, Cor Unum, the Council for Peace and Justice, the Council for Pastoral Care for Migrants, and the Council for Culture. By John L. Allen.
(National Catholic Reporter, Dec 21, 2001) During the Mass that followed, Cardinal Giovanni Cheli’s homily offered the strongest anti-war statement I have heard from any Vatican official since Sept. 11.
(Cheli, now retired, is the former head of the Council for Migrants, where he was the boss and patron of exorcist Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo. His soap opera-style marriage riveted the world last summer. To Cheli’s credit, he stood by his friend, and is credited with helping bring the affair to resolution).
After Sept. 11, Cheli said, people found themselves asking, “How can we bring an enduring peace to the world?”
“The Western powers decided that war is the only way to attack terrorism and bring peace, and so war with all its force has fallen upon Afghanistan,” Cheli said. “Inevitably it has taken the lives of unarmed persons, destroyed homes, created orphans and widows, produced hunger, and left sick people without medicines.”
“Today,” Cheli said, “we see the result. Even worse evils are loose in the world, in the Middle East and elsewhere. There is a new level of hate, of desperation, of violence.”
Nothing can justify terrorism, Cheli said. But there are “enormous injustices” in the world, he said, such as the denial to whole peoples of the right to determine their own future. “The fight against terrorism,” he said, “must start here.”
“Our arms must be prayer, penance and charity,” Cheli said. “They are the only ones that can secure the victory.”
Born on the feast of the caring Saint Francis of Assisi