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Tuesday Apr 29, 2025
Wednesday Apr 30, 2025
Wednesday Apr 30, 2025
IMAGE CREDITElza Fiúza/Abr, CC BY 3.0 BR, via Wikimedia Commons
LINKS
Vatican bio of Cardinal Leonardo Ulrich STEINER:
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_steiner_l.html
Leonardo Ulrich STEINER on FIU's Cardinals Database (by Salvador Miranda):
https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios2022.htm#Steiner
Cardinal Leonardo Ulrich STEINER on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/p/5762
Cardinal Leonardo Ulrich STEINER on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bulst.html
Archdiocese of Manaus on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/dioceses/diocese/mana1.htm?tab=info
Archdiocese of Manaus on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dmanb.html
2022 Aleteia.org profile of Cardinal-Elect Steiner:
https://aleteia.org/2022/08/26/a-red-hat-for-the-amazon-basin/
2022 Vatican News profile of Cardinal-Elect Steiner (Portuguese):
https://www.vaticannews.va/pt/igreja/news/2022-05/presidencia-da-cnbb-sauda-os-novos-cardeais-do-brasil.html
Special Assembly for the Pan-Amazon Region–list of participants:
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2019/09/21/0723/01479.html
2017 La Stampa coverage of the Amazon Synod (archived version):
https://web.archive.org/web/20190618142401/https://www.lastampa.it/2017/10/15/vaticaninsider/eng/world-news/a-synod-for-the-indigenous-peoples-of-south-america-bu6BcrTX8a4HWl645ztM6O/pagina.html
Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Querida Amazonia:
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20200202_querida-amazonia.html
Ecclesiastical Conference of the Amazon on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/dioceses/organizations/j02.htm
The Revealer.org profile of Sister Manso Pereira:
https://therevealer.org/in-the-amazon-religious-women-lead-the-way/
2023 America Magazine report of indigenous women leaders from the Ecclesiastical Conference of the Amazon meeting with Pope Francis:
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/06/06/women-deacons-indigenous-pope-francis-meeting-245437
2023 National Catholic Reporter piece on women ministering in the Amazon:
https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/guest-voices/sisters-model-womens-diaconal-ministry-amazon
Cruxnow coverage of 2022 delegation of bishops (including Archbishop Steiner) meeting with Pope Francis to discuss violence in Amazonia:
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2022/06/brazilian-bishops-discuss-violence-in-the-amazon-with-pope-francis
Thank you for listening, and thank my family and friends for putting up with the time investment and for helping me out as needed.
As always, feel free to email the show at Popeularhistory@gmail.com
If you would like to financially support Popeular history, go to www.patreon.com/Popeular. If you don't have any money to spare but still want to give back, pray and tell others– prayers and listeners are worth more than gold!
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights.
Check out the show notes for sources, further reading, and a transcript.
Today we're discussing another current Cardinal of the Catholic Church, one of the 120 or so people who will choose the next Pope when the time comes.
The thirteenth of sixteen children, Leonardo Ulrich STEINER was born on November 6, 1950 in Forquilhinha, a community in Brazil's second southernmost state of Santa Catarina. He's our third Brazilian Cardinal, but he won't be our last, in fact one of his cousins is fellow Brazilian Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns.
Leonardo joined the Franciscans in 1972 at the age of 21, making his solemn profession in ‘76. In a pattern we've seen before, he studied philosophy and theology in Brazil, then went to Rome for more advanced studies, obtaining a licentiate and then a doctorate from the Antonianum. I don't know if I've emphasized the Franciscan affiliation of the Antonianum before, but it's certainly there–the Anthony it's named after is the Franciscan Anthony of Padua, after all.
When Leonardo was ordained in 1978, it was carried out by his Cardinal-cousin I mentioned earlier, fellow Franciscan and then-Archbishop of São Paulo Cardinal Arns. He did pastoral work for a while, then he served as a formator at, uh, a seminary. From 1986 till 1995 Father Steiner was Master of Novices at, *a* seminary, presumably the same one, though that's not especially clear. The third source I checked for this particular detail described the posts he took up at the Antonianum in Rome in 1995 as the result of a transfer between institutions, so it I guess can rule that out as our mystery institution. While at the Antonianum, he served as a secretary–I expect the high level kind–and as a professor of Philosophy. He was in Rome for several years before moving back to southern Brazil in 2003.
Back home, he served both as a pastor and lecturer, this time at the Bom Jesus Faculty of Philosophy, “bom” meaning "good” or I would perhaps suggest “sweet Jesus” as the more familiar English phrase with a close meaning.
In 2005, Father Steiner's white phone rang and he learned he was being made Bishop-Prelate of São Félix. His episcopal consecration was carried out by none other than his longserving cousin, Cardinal Arns, who had been fully retired for years by that point, but apparently didn't mind making it a family affair. By the way, the voice on the other end of that white phone must have been fairly shaky, because Pope John Paul II died in the few months between the appointment and Bishop Steiner's actual consecration.
Oh, also, did you catch that Prelate part of “Bishop-Prelate”? You see, São Félix was not and actually still is not a full-on diocese, rather it's at an intermediate sort of state called a “Territorial Prelature”. To give you an idea of why it's in an unusual state canonically, let me give you some stats. São Félix covers an area larger than England, with a total population of a bit under 200,000. At the time of his consecration, Bishop-Prelate Steiner had about ten priests to work with to address the spiritual needs of about 130,000 Catholics.
The relatively sparse population is due to São Félix being on the edge of the Amazon Rainforest. This was not Bishop-Prelate Steiner's last contact with Amazonia. In May 2011 he became secretary general of the Brazilian Episcopal Conference, a post he held for the next eight years, and later on in 2011 Bishop-Prelate Steiner was appointed as an auxiliary bishop of the capitol, Brasília, working alongside Cardinal da Rocha, who we discussed in fall 2023.
In 2017 Pope Francis announced the Synod on the Amazon, something which Bishop Steiner had apparently personally handed Pope Francis a document requesting on behalf of the Brazilian bishops. The Synod was duely held in 2019, and had a special focus on the indigenous peoples of the area, who, to quote Pope Francis, are “often forgotten and without the prospect of a serene future”. Another substantial issue is the ecology of the matter, with Pope Francis being known as an environmentalist before and certainly no less so after his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si, which called out the Amazon specifically as in need of special care.
Bishop Steiner notably did *not* participate in the synod. I was fully expecting to say he had, and maybe I missed something, but the list of hundreds of official participants is linked in the show notes, and he's not on it. In reality his delivery of the bishop's request for the Synod was probably due to his formal role in the overall Bishop’s conference and not due to his own connection to the region, which at this point was minor.
However, despite that narratively inconvenient historical fact, later that year Bishop Steiner did become a full-on Amazonian bishop, being appointed the Archbishop of Manaus in the rather pointedly named Brazilian state of Amazonas. There he got to experience the staffing and geographic issues he had seen in his Bishop-Prelate days on a larger scale: there's a reason the Amazon Synod discussed things like allowing for married priests to help with the shortages, something which was much discussed in media coverage but was in truth only a minor topic in the Synod itself.
One real fruit of the Amazon Synod was the establishment of the Ecclesiastical Conference of the Amazon. Adding yet another organizational wrinkle to the megacluster of organizational wrinkles that is the Catholic Church, an *Ecclesiastical* Conference functions like a Bishop's Conference, but is not limited to Bishops. In 2022, Archbishop Steiner became its First Vice-President. In yet another example of the organizational wrinkling I just joked about, I don't mean he's the first person to hold that office, instead, “First Vice-President” is his actual title, as the Ecclesiastical Conference actually has multiple Vice-President roles.
I've been fairly brief and matter-of-fact in my descriptions here, so I want to end on a more human note, as there is real struggle in Amazonia. So let's hear from another Vice-President of the Ecclesiastical Conference, Sister Manso Pereira.
A descendent of the Kariri Brazilian tribal group, Sister Manso Pereira recently related a conversation she had with the Karipuna people about the danger they face from armed groups of illegal logging and mining companies. Quote:
“We sleep well when you are here, because you’re with us.’ I said, ‘Why? If they come for you to kill you, they’re going to kill me, too.’ And they said, ‘We know if you went missing, the church would come looking for you. They would know you were gone.’”
In 2022, Pope Francis made Archbishop Steiner the first Cardinal from the Amazon region, also adding him to the Dicastery for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life.
Leonardo Ulrich STEINER
is eligible to participate in future conclaves until he turns 80 in 2030.
Today's episode is part of Cardinal Numbers. Stay tuned to see if today's Cardinal gets selected for a deeper dive in the next round! Thank you for listening; God bless you all!
Thursday May 01, 2025
Thursday May 01, 2025
IMAGE CREDITMEDEF, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia CommonsLINKS
Vatican bio of Cardinal Philippe BARBARIN:
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_barbarin_p.html
Philippe BARBARIN on FIU's Cardinals Database (by Salvador Miranda):
https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios2003.htm#Barbarin
Cardinal Philippe BARBARIN on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/p/17
Cardinal Philippe BARBARIN on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bbarbarin.html
Archdiocese of Lyon on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/dioceses/diocese/lyon0.htm?tab=info
Archdiocese of Lyon on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dlyon.htm
The Catholic Encyclopedia, “Primate” (via newadvent.org):
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12423b.htm
Brittanca.com, “Lyon”:
https://www.britannica.com/place/Lyon-France
Zenit.org coverage of Cardinal Barbarin's 2013 heart attack:
https://zenit.org/2013/07/24/cardinal-philippe-barbarin-suffers-heart-attack/
2020 The Guardian reporting on the Preynat case:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/defrocked-french-priest-jailed-for-abusing-scouts-over-20-year-period
2019 France24 coverage of Cardinal Barbarin and the Preynat scandal as it stood at the time:
https://www.france24.com/en/video/20190319-pope-refuses-french-cardinal-barbarins-resignation-over-abuse-cover-scandal
2020 La Croix interview with the early-retiring Cardinal:
https://international.la-croix.com/news/religion/cardinal-philippe-barbarin-begins-busy-early-retirement/12647
Thank you for listening, and thank my family and friends for putting up with the time investment and for helping me out as needed.
As always, feel free to email the show at Popeularhistory@gmail.com
If you would like to financially support Popeular history, go to www.patreon.com/Popeular. If you don't have any money to spare but still want to give back, pray and tell others– prayers and listeners are worth more than gold!
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights.
Check out the show notes for sources, further reading, and a transcript.
Today we're discussing another current Cardinal of the Catholic Church, one of the 120 or so people who will choose the next Pope when the time comes.
One of eleven children, Philippe Xavier Christian Ignace Marie Barbarin was born on October 17, 1950 in Rabat, Morocco, located right in the middle of the second big inward curve if you're following the coast coming up from south. Though Morocco is over 99% Muslim, Rabat has popped up on our radar before, thanks to recent Cardinal López Romero winding up as Archbishop of Rabat after his continent hopping journeys. Cardinal Barbarin hasn’t gotten credit as Morocco's first Cardinal, when you Google that up you get lots of Lopez Romero. Granted, Philippe Barbarin wasn't born in the modern nation of Morocco, rather he was born in French Morocco, like Cardinal Mamberti, if you remember that. And it's fair to not count colonizers who never really lived the same lives as the locals. I don't know for sure that Philippe actually fits that description, but that's also not the only reason folks might not be in a rush to credit him as the first Moroccan Cardinal… but I'm getting ahead of myself.
After Moroccan independence, Philippe wound up in France, experiencing the joys of military service while also studying a little theology and a lot of philosophy in Paris, getting a licentiate in the former from the Carmes Seminary and a doctorate in the latter from the Sarbonne.
In 1977, Philippe Barbarin was ordained a priest for the young diocese of Créteil, centered on an eponymous suburb southeast of Paris. From 1977 till 1985, he served as Vicar in two parishes: Notre-Dame d'Alfortville and Notre-Dame de Vincennes, Notre-Dame of course being French for “Our Lady”, on the off chance that you got this deep without already knowing that.
From ‘85 to ‘90, Father Barbarin served two parishes and a school simultaneously, as well as an ecumenical role in the diocese. The parishes, if you're wondering, were Saint François de Sales d'Adambille en Saint-Maur, and Saint-Hilaire de la Varenne.
From ‘91 to ‘94, Father Barbarin served as the pastor of Saint Léger Parish and then transferred quite a ways, effectively being loaned out to the Archdiocese of Fianarantsoa in Madagascar, where he taught theology at the Major Seminary of Vohitsoa. Which explains the presence of Malagasy, the dominant language of Madagascar, on the list of languages Cardinal Barbarin Speaks, along with English, Italian, Spanish, German, and of course his native French.
1998 was white phone time, when Father Barbarin heard from Pope Saint John Paul the Second that he was going to be made Bishop of Moulins, back in France. As is so often the case, you can see why the three bishops that consecrated him were chosen for the task: his principal consectator was the Archbishop of Fianarantsoa, who he had been serving under in Madagascar, accompanied by his original bishop in France from Créteil, as well as the Bishop emeritus of Moulins who he was replacing.
Physically located in pretty much the exact center of France, it's worth noting that I simply do not trust the demographic data Catholic-Hierarchy.org has for the Diocese of Moulins. I want to give them credit for their essential work, and it's entirely possible the error is in the sources they're relying on and not some issue on their end, but I don't see how you can have the shifts shown in the period recorded. I'm sure I've missed flagging bad data before, so don't take this as an indication that I'll point it out whenever there's something fishy floating around, but I do what I can and felt I should mention the oddity there. At some point when I get around to it I'll cross reference their source material since they're kind enough to cite it.
In 2002, Bishop Barbarin was chosen as the next Archbishop of the ancient see of Lyon in southeasternish France. Allegedly, Lyon was the Capital of the Gauls back when the Gauls were a thing, and in any event it's pretty universally agreed that it's old enough one of its first bishops was a disciple of a disciple of Saint John, so basically Jesus’ spiritual great-grandson, and that wasn't even the *first* bishop there. To this day, the Archbishop of Lyon also carries the title of Primate of the Gauls.
In 2003, that is, at the next opportunity, Archbishop Barbarin was made a Cardinal, which is completely unsurprising given the status of Lyon: every Archbishop of Lyon in the 20th century was made a Cardinal. And as we know, the red hat gets you additional duties: he was made a member of the Congregations for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Of course the most famous duty of a Cardinal is the one he exercised in the conclave of 2005 that elected Pope Benedict, and again in the 2013 election that gave us Pope Francis.
Later on in 2013, Cardinal Barbarin suffered a heart attack while in South America preparing for World Youth Day. An unsourced wikipedia entry states that he underwent a successful triple bypass surgery in Martinique a few days later, and I think it's safe enough to say something like that happened: in any event he did survive.
In 2016, Cardinal Barbarin began to get asked questions about his handling–or lack thereof-of a bad priest, a certain Father Bernard Preynat. Content warning, I'm not going to go into graphic detail but yes we're talking about the abuse of minors here. From 1971 to 1991 Father Preynat abused some seventy minors he encountered principally through the scouting program.
Obviously, and allow me to stress this emphatically, the charge against Barbarin was not the abuse itself, but rather his lack of disclosure of the situation to the authorities. This was very much a charge though, because his lack of reporting was apparently a crime, and as a victim myself- though not of clergy- rightly so. Apparently in 2019 when Cardinal Barbarin was originally convicted of failing to report and was given a six month suspended sentence, he offered his resignation to Pope Francis, who initially refused, speaking of the presumption of innocence, which seems an odd line to take given Barbarin had *just* been convicted, but hey what do I know.
In any event, the next year Cardinal Barbarin's conviction *was* overturned on appeal, so it seems Pope Francis was perhaps wise to wait, but then in March his holiness turned around and accepted Cardinal Barbarin's resignation after all, making him the Archbishop Emeritus of Lyon.
Cardinal Barbarin says he is available for whatever mission Pope Francis might entrust him with next.
Barring a further change in his status, which to be clear I do not expect as I think it would have happened already if it was going to happen, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin remains eligible to participate in future conclaves until he turns 80 in 2030.
Today's episode is part of Cardinal Numbers. Stay tuned to see if today's Cardinal gets selected for a deeper dive in the next round! Thank you for listening; God bless you all!
Saturday May 03, 2025
Saturday May 03, 2025
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:By Pufui Pc Pifpef I - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31309211 via Wikipedia
LINKS
Vatican bio of Cardinal Raymond Leo BURKE
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_burke_rl.html
Raymond Leo BURKE on FIU's Cardinals Database (by Salvador Miranda):
https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios2010.htm#Burke
Cardinal Raymond Leo BURKE on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/p/2334
Cardinal Raymond Leo BURKE on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bburke.html
Apostolic Signatura on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/dioceses/romancuria/d13.htm
Apostolic Signatura on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dbgch.html
2003 Catholic News Agency bio of Archbishop Burke:
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/286/pope-appoints-bishop-raymond-burke-as-new-archbishop-of-st-louis
Merriam-Webster, “Defender of the Bond”:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/defender%20of%20the%20bond#:~:text=The%20meaning%20of%20DEFENDER%20OF%20THE%20BOND,the%20marriage%20bond%20in%20suits%20for%20annulment
Dead Theologians Society:
https://deadtheologianssociety.com/about/
Catholic Herald analysis of Cardinal Burke's 2014 reassignment:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160701214308/http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/11/10/thousands-sign-petition-thanking-cardinal-burke/
2013 National Catholic Reporter commentary- “I want a mess” -Pope Francis:
https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/pope-i-want-mess
2014 CruxNow “Soap Opera” Synod on the Family coverage:
https://web.archive.org/web/20141017055135/http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2014/10/16/synod-is-more-and-more-like-a-soap-opera/
Amoris Laetitia:
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amoris-laetitia.html
2017 Knights of Malta reshuffle:
https://catholicherald.co.uk/pope-names-archbishop-becciu-as-personal-delegate-to-order-of-malta/
2018 National Catholic Register editorial Reflection on Amoris Laetitia controversy
https://www.ncregister.com/news/francis-fifth-a-pontificate-of-footnotes
2016 National Catholic Register coverage of the Dubia:
https://www.ncregister.com/news/four-cardinals-formally-ask-pope-for-clarity-on-amoris-laetitia
Traditionis custodes: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/motu_proprio/documents/20210716-motu-proprio-traditionis-custodes.html
Cardinal Burke's Statement on Traditionis Custodes:
https://www.cardinalburke.com/presentations/traditionis-custodes
The 2023 Dubia (w/Pope Francis’ responses):
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-10/pope-francis-responds-to-dubia-of-five-cardinals.html
National Catholic Reporter coverage of removal of Cardinal Burke's Vatican apartment and salary:
https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vatican-news/pope-francis-remove-cardinal-burkes-vatican-apartment-and-salary-sources-say
Anonymous “Cardinal Burke is my enemy” report:
https://catholicherald.co.uk/pope-calls-cardinal-burke-his-enemy-and-threatens-to-strip-him-of-privileges-reports-claim/
Where Peter Is coverage of Cardinal Burke's 2024 private meeting with Pope Francis
https://wherepeteris.com/cardinal-burkes-meeting-withĥhh-pope-francis/
Thank you for listening, and thank my family and friends for putting up with the time investment and for helping me out as needed.
As always, feel free to email the show at Popeularhistory@gmail.com
If you would like to financially support Popeular history, go to www.patreon.com/Popeular. If you don't have any money to spare but still want to give back, pray and tell others– prayers and listeners are worth more than gold!
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights.
Check out the show notes for sources, further reading, and a transcript.
Today we're discussing another current Cardinal of the Catholic Church, one of the 120 or so people who will choose the next Pope when the time comes.
The youngest of six, Raymond Leo Burke was born on June 30, 1948, in Richland Center, a small town in sparsely populated Richland County, Wisconsin.
Not too much later, the family moved north to tiny Stratford, Wisconsin, where he grew up.
We've had a *lot*, of midwestern Cardinals, in fact all but one of our 8 American Cardinals so far has been born in the midwest, a percentage I would probably consider shocking if I didn't identify as a midwesterner myself, though technically I'm about as much of a northern southerner as you can get, considering my parents basically moved to Virginia to have their kids and immediately moved back to Ohio once that was accomplished. But enough about me, this is about Raymond Leo Burke, who signed up for Holy Cross Seminary in La Crosse in 1962. Later he went to The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where he wound up with a masters in philosophy in 1971. After that he was sent to Rome for his theology studies, getting a second masters, this time from the Gregorian. He was ordained by Pope Paul VI–yes, *before* JPII, crazy I know, in 1975 on June 29th, which longtime listeners will probably clock as the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul and more importantly the Popeular History podcasts’ official anniversary date.
Returning to Wisconsin as a priest for the Diocese of La Crosse, Father Burke served as an associate rector for the cathedral, then as a religion teacher at Aquinas High School in town.
Making his way back to Rome, Father Burke returned to the Gregorian to study Canon Law, by 1984 he had a doctorate in the topic with a specialization in jurisprudence.
He came back stateside long enough to pick up a couple diocesan roles back in La Crosse, but soon enough he went back to the Gregorian for a third time, this time not as a student but as a teacher, namely as a Visiting professor of Canonical Jurisprudence, a post which he held for nearly a decade from ‘85 to ‘94.
He wound up becoming the first American to hold the position of Defender of the Bond of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature, as a reminder that’s basically the Vatican's Supreme Court.
As for what being a Defender of the Bond entails, it's basically the guy in charge of proving the validity of a disputed marriage, typically–I’d imagine--oversomeone's objections, or else, you know, the case wouldn't have wound up in court.
In 1994, his white phone rang, and it was Pope John Paul II, calling to make him bishop of his home Diocese of La Crosse. Father Burke was personally consecrated by His Holiness in the Vatican.
In ‘97, Bishop Burke became a member of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, ranking as a Knight Commander with Star automatically by virtue of his being a bishop. The Order traces its origins to the First Crusade, making it one of the oldest chivalric Orders in the world–and it’s not the only such order Bishop Burke will get involved in.
In 2000, bishop Burke became National Director of the Marian Catechist Apostolate, something which certainly seems near to his heart considering he's still in the role. Well, international director now, as things have grown.
In 2002, Bishop Burke invited a fairly new apostolate named the Dead Theologians Society to the diocese, which isn't something I'd normally include, but I wanted to make sure it got a shoutout because it started at my parish. Oriented towards high school and college students, they study the lives of the saints, and Cardinal Burke is a fan, saying: “I am happy to commend the Dead Theologians Society to individual families and to parishes, as a most effective form of Catholic youth ministry.”
In 2003, Bishop Burke became Archbishop Burke when he was transferred to the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Saint Louis, where he served until 2008, when he was called up to Rome, to serve as prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature, there's that Vatican Supreme Court again, and this time he's running it. And if you're making assumptions based on that appointment, yes, he's absolutely considered one of the foremost experts on canon law worldwide, having published numerous books and articles.
In 2010, Pope Benedict raised Archbishop Burke to the rank of Cardinal Deacon and assigned him the deaconry of S. Agata de 'Goti. Naturally he participated in the 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis, where I am prepared to guess he was in the minority given subsequent events.
The next year, so 2014, Cardinal Burke was transferred from his top judicial spot to serve as the patron of the Sovereign Order of Malta, aka the Knights of Malta, a reassignment that was generally interpreted as a demotion, given he was going from his dream job for canon law geek that made him the highest ranking American in the Vatican at the time to a largely ceremonial post that was, well, not that.
[All that is nothing against the Knights of Malta, which these days are a solid humanitarian resource and quasi-state trivia machine I'll give their own episode at some point.]
The tension between Cardinal Burke and Pope Francis has been fairly clear from the start. They have fundamentally different approaches and styles, and frankly different goals. Cardinal Burke is dedicated to maintaining tradition as the safest route, while Pope Francis has famously called for shaking things up, for example saying:
“What is it that I expect as a consequence of World Youth Day? I want a mess. We knew that in Rio there would be great disorder, but I want trouble in the dioceses!”
That's Pope Francis, of course. Just before his transfer out of his top spot at the Vatican's court, Cardinal Burke noted that many Catholics, quote:
“feel a bit of seasickness, because it seems to them that the ship of the Church has lost its compass.”
End quote.
To his credit, Cardinal Burke took the move in stride, which matches up well with his general view that authority should be respected and that, as a canonist, the Pope is the ultimate authority.
Deference to such authority in the context of the Catholic Church is known as Clericalism, and being pro or anti Clericalism is another point of disagreement between Cardinal Burke and Pope Francis, who said “I want to get rid of clericalism” in the same early interview I mentioned before.
Part of what Cardinal Burke was responding to with his “lost compass” quote was the first stages of the Synod on the Family, which veteran Vatican reporter John Allen Jr described as like a “soap opera”, with working notes that were released to the public speaking positively about things like same-sex unions and other relationships the Vatican tends to describe as “irregular”. After the Synod on the Family wrapped up, in 2016 Pope Francis produced a post-synodal apostolic exhortation called Amoris Laetitia, or “The Joy of Love”, which I saw one of my sources described the longest document in the history of the Papacy, a hell of a claim I am not immediately able to refute because it sure *is* a long one, which is primarily known for the controversy of just one of its footnotes, footnote 351.
I’m still making *some* effort to make these first round episodes be brief, but it's important to keep things in context, so let's go ahead and look at the sentence the footnote is attached to, which is in paragraph 305, and Then the footnote itself. If you want even more context, the entirety of Amoris Laetitia is, of course, linked in the show notes.
Here we go:
“Because of forms of conditioning and mitigating factors, it is possible that in an objective situation of sin – which may not be subjectively culpable, or fully such – a person can be living in God’s grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and charity, while receiving the Church’s help to this end.”
And yes, that is one sentence. Popes are almost as bad about sentence length as I am.
Without the footnote, this probably would have gone relatively unnoticed, the Church accompanying sinners is not a fundamentally revolutionary idea. But the footnote in question gets specific and brings in the Sacraments, which is where things get touchy:
“In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments. Hence, “I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy” I would also point out that the Eucharist “is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak”.
For one thing, just to get this out of the way, some of that is in quotation marks with citations. In a document like this that's pretty normal, showing how your argument is based on precedent and authority. Except in this case the precedent and the authority being cited is literally Pope Francis himself. To be clear, this is a normal Pope thing, I found multiple examples of JPII and Pope Benedict doing the same thing, it just amuses me.
Anyways, the idea of people in objectively sinful states receiving communion is hyper-controversial. After all, even as far back as Saint Paul, receiving Communion “unworthily” is an awful thing. Of course, questions have long followed about how anyone can be truly worthy of the Eucharist, with the basic answer there being “with God's help”, but yeah, it's tricky.
We can have an educated guess how Cardinal Burke felt about all this, because he and three other Cardinals--it'll be a while before we get to any of the others–anyways Cardinal Burke and three other Cardinals asked Pope Francis some fairly pointed questions about this in a format called a dubia, traditionally a yes/no format where the Holy Father affirms or denies potential implications drawn from one of their teachings to clarify areas of doubt. In this case, there were five questions submitted, with the first and I daresay the most sincerely debated being the question of whether footnote 351 means divorced and subsequently remarried Catholics can receive communion. There's lots of subtext here, but as a reminder this is actually the *short* version of this episode, so pardon the abbreviation. The next four questions are, to put it snarkily, variations on the obviously very sincere question of “does the truth matter anymore?”
Pope Francis decided not to answer these dubia, which the Cardinals took as an invitation to make them–and his lack of a response–public. Not as a way of outing him after his refusal to answer gotcha questions with a yes/no, not by any means, but because clearly that's what not getting an answer meant Pope Francis wanted them to do.
Now, there's something of an issue here, because we're nearing record word count for Cardinal Numbers, and that’s without any real long diversions about the history of Catholicism in Cardinal Burke's area or his interactions with the local secular ruler. It's all been Church stuff. And we’re nowhere near the end.
The reality is that I'm painfully aware my own discipline is the only thing that keeps me from going longer on these episodes when appropriate, and the major driving force for keeping them short was to keep things manageable. But now that I'm no longer committed to a daily format, “manageable” has very different implications. And even my secondary driver, a general sense of fairness, not making one Cardinal's episode too much longer than the others, well, the other Cardinals in this batch have had longer episodes too, so it's not as much of a lopsided battle for the First Judgment, and it's not like longer automatically means more interesting.
In the end, with those inhibitions gone, and a sense that this stuff is important and it would be a shame to skip big chunks of it if Cardinal Burke *doesn't* make it to the next round, I'm going to go ahead and keep walking through this so it gets said, and let it take what time it takes. My best guess is we're about halfway through. That way there's no special pressure to make Cardinal Burke advance just to cover anything I felt was too rushed. Don't worry, there's still plenty being left out. Fair?
Fair or not, Let's resume.
In 2015, so after his relegation to the Knights of Malta but before Amoris Laetitia and the Dubia, Cardinal Burke was added to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which is still one of his roles though like other Vatican offices it has since been rebranded as a Dicastery.
In 2017, Burke's posting as Patron of the Knights of Malta, the one I described as largely ceremonial, threatened to become interesting when Pope Francis forced the head of the order to resign over, well, condoms, basically. But as soon as things started looking interesting Pope Francis helicoptered in an archbishop to serve as his “special delegate” and more importantly his “exclusive spokesman” to the Order, which effectively sidelined Burke from a gig he had been sidelined *to* a few years earlier.
Nevertheless, 2017 also actually saw Burke start to bounce back some. I want to re emphasize this is notably *after* the Dubia, when later in the year Pope Francis picked Cardinal Burke as the judge in the case of an Archbishop who had been accused of sexully abusing his altar servers. The Archbishop was found guilty and deposed, and by the end of the year, having gotten his feet wet again, Cardinal Burke was back on as a member of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature, though, notably, not as its head anymore.
The next major flashpoint came In 2021, when Pope Francis published Traditionis Custodes, a document that severely restricted the celebration of the old Latin Mass.
Long story short, what's colloquially called Latin Mass is the version of Mass that was the main liturgy for Latin rite Catholics for hundreds of years until the Second Vatican Council kicked off serious updates in the 1960s, the most obvious of which is the general shift from Latin to the use of local aka vernacular languages, and the second most obvious is the direction the priest is facing for the majority of the liturgy. There's obviously more detail available on everything I just said, and people have *opinions*, I'll tell you that for sure.
Cardinal Burke's fundamental opinion was and is that the Latin Mass is great and should be maintained and that, in short, Pope Francis may even be overstepping his bounds in restricting it as much as he is with Traditionis Custodes, which is a strong claim given the whole, you know, general idea of the Papacy.
A few weeks after the Traditionis Custodes stuff went down, Cardinal Burke was on a ventilator fighting for his life. We're only doing living Cardinals at this time, so no suspense there for us, but his bout with COVID was touch-and-go for a while there.
In June 2023, notably a few weeks before his 75th birthday and that customary retirement age, Pope Francis replaced Cardinal Burke as the Patron of the Knights of Malta with an 80 year old Jesuit Cardinal. If you're noticing that Burke was relaced by someone who was themselves a fair bit older and also well past retirement age, yeah, you're not alone in noticing that, and you wouldn't be alone in thinking that some kind of point was being made here.
Just a few weeks after that retirement, Cardinal Burke attached his name to another dubia document, this one covering a larger variety of topics and appearing and in the context of the ongoing Synod on Synodality.
Cardinal Burke was again joined by one of his fellow signers of the first dubia, the other two having passed away in 2017, may they rest in peace. They were also joined by three Cardinals who had not cosigned the previous Dubia, though all of those are over 80 and so we won't be covering them for a while.
In any event, this second set of dubia covered a wider range of topics in its five questions, including two particularly hot-button issues, namely the question of blessings for same sex unions, which is something I will refer you to my Fiducia Supplicans anniversary coverage (oops, didn't get that out yet) on for fuller detail, and notion of women serving as deacons, which is still an open question at the time of this writing: as we've discussed previously, ordination has been pretty firmly ruled out, but there may be room for an unordained diaconate. After all, Saint Paul entrusted the letter to the Romans to a woman he described as a deacon.
Pope Francis actually responded to this second dubia the day after the dubious Cardinals submitted it, giving lengthy and detailed answers to all of their questions. Naturally this seems to have annoyed Cardinal Burke and his compatriots, because remember, traditionally answers to Dubia have been yes or no, and so they reframed their questions and asked Pope Francis to respond just with “yes” or “no”. When it was evident His Holiness was not going to reply further, the Cardinals once again took the lack of an answer- or rather the lack of yes/no format answers- as encouragement to publish everything, which was an interesting move since that seems to have essentially set Fiducia Supplicans in motion, as Pope Francis indicated an openness to informal blessings for homosexuals in one of his dubia responses. All of that is in the show notes.
Later in 2023, Pope Francis stripped Cardinal Burke of his Vatican apartment and retirement salary, which I have been tempted to call a pension but everyone I've seen calls it a retirement salary so it's probably safest to follow suit. Officially no reason was given, but I mean, you've listened to this episode, take your pick of tension points and believe it or not I've skipped several chapters of drama real or alleged. Speaking of alleged, this is the Vatican, so anonymous sources are happy to weigh in, including alleging that Pope Francis straight up said “Cardinal Burke is my enemy”. I don't think I buy that he was so plain about it, but I also don't expect Cardinal Burke is Pope Francis’ favorite guy.
On December 29, 2023, Cardinal Burke had a private audience with Pope Francis for the first time in over seven years. Cardinal Burke's last private audience with Pope Francis had been back in 2016, four days before the first dubia was made public.
The idea of the two having a little chat grabbed media attention more than any other meeting between a Cardinal and a Pope that I can recall. As is typical for such one-on-ones, no official reason or agenda was given, and it's not likely we'll ever know what exactly was said, but I've got to hand it to Cardinal Burke for his response when Reuters asked him about it:
‘Well, I’m still alive.'”
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE is eligible to participate in future conclaves until he turns 80 in 2028.
“AM I THE DRAMA”?
Today's episode is part of Cardinal Numbers,
and there will be more Cardinal Numbers next week. Thank you for listening; God bless you all!
Sunday May 04, 2025
Sunday May 04, 2025
IMAGE CREDIT:
Peciul, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia CommonsLINKS:
Vatican bio of Cardinal Oscar CANTONI:
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_cantoni_o.html
Oscar CANTONI on FIU's Cardinals Database (by Salvador Miranda):
https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios2022.htm#Cantoni
Cardinal Oscar CANTONI on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/p/4928
Cardinal Oscar CANTONI on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bcantoni.html
Diocese of Como on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/dioceses/diocese/como0.htm?tab=info
Diocese of Como on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dcomi.html
2022 Aleteia.org profile of Cardinal-elect Cantoni and the Diocese of Como:
https://aleteia.org/2022/08/27/cardinal-cantoni-an-italian-in-red-for-a-martyred-diocese/
Telegraph.co.uk 2024 reporting on Fr. Martinelli case:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/24/priest-jailed-abuse-altar-boy-popes-choirboys/
Catholic News Agency reporting on the 2021 Fr. Martinelli trial:
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/246626/vatican-abuse-trial-witnesses-say-allegations-about-youth-seminary-were-ignored
National Catholic Reporter 2024 reporting on Fr. Martinelli case:
https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vatican-news/vatican-appeals-court-finds-priest-guilty-corrupting-minor
Reuters 2024 reporting on Fr. Martinelli case:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/vatican-convicts-priest-accused-abuse-papal-altar-boys-school-2024-01-23/
Thank you for listening, and thank my family and friends for putting up with the time investment and for helping me out as needed.
As always, feel free to email the show at Popeularhistory@gmail.com
If you would like to financially support Popeular history, go to www.patreon.com/Popeular. If you don't have any money to spare but still want to give back, pray and tell others– prayers and listeners are worth more than gold!
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights.
Check out the show notes for sources, further reading, and a transcript.
Please note that this episode includes discussion of sexual crimes and allegations, and may not be appropriate for all audiences.
Today we're discussing another current Cardinal o f the Catholic Church, one of the 120 or so people who will choose the next Pope when the time comes..
Oscar CANTONI was born on September 1, 1950, in Lenno, a small town in the Como Province of the Lombardy Region of northern Italy.
We've had several Italian Cardinals before- nine, to be exact, and we've even had another Cardinal from Lombardy–Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and I count myself blessed every time I have the chance to say the name of Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa.
In any event, Oscar had the most surprising educational history out of all the Cardinals so far: while by all accounts he did well at school, and he's actually published several books, *and* he's taught in various capacities for decades, he doesn't have any academic degrees.
Nevertheless, in 1975 he was ordained as a priest for the Diocese of Como. From 1985 to 1999 he was actively involved in promoting vocations, becoming director of the Vocational Diocesan Center in 1986. From 1990 to 2005, Father Cantoni served as a Spiritual Director at the diocesan seminary.
One more unique project came along in 2000, when he re-founded the Ordo Virginum in the Diocese, the Ordo Virginum being an association of consecrated virgins that had fallen into obscurity until it was restored by the Second Vatican Council.
From 2003 to 2005, Father Cantoni was episcopal vicar for the clergy of Como, and it's time that I admit that for a while I thought each Diocese could only have one Episcopal Vicar but I have since come to understand that while each Episcopal Vicar has their own distinct mandate, there can nevertheless be several, if that's what the Bishop wants.
In 2005, the trusty old white phone rang, and it was Pope Saint John Paul II, looking to make Father Cantoni Bishop of Crema.
Now, you don't say no to JPII, or at least Father Cantoni didn't, and so on March 5th, he was consecrated by his former ordinary, the Bishop of Como, and, well, his other former ordinary, the Bishop Emeritus of Como. The third spot was filled by the Italian Nuncio, a fairly standard arrangement. The previous Bishop of Crema had died in office a few months before, if you're wondering what he was up to.
In 2016, Bishop Cantoni was transferred to the Diocese of Como, where he had grown up and served as a priest. In 2017, he ordained Gabriele Martinelli, despite having received some reports of sexual misconduct connected to Matinelli over the years, which Bishop Cantoni later said he had dismissed as quote “transitory homosexual tendency linked to adolescence”.
Both the future Father Martinelli and his alleged victim, identified as “L.G.” were teenagers at the time, with Martinelli being about a year older.
The alleged sexual relationship took place over several years in a pre-seminary that was actually on Vatican grounds, tasked with supplying altar servers for Saint Peter's Basilica. The pre-seminary was sponsored by the Diocese of Como, hence Bishop Cantoni's connection.
In 2021, Father Martinelli, who has consistently denied everything, was cleared due to a combination of his youth at the time and insufficient evidence, and it was after that ruling that Pope Francis elevated Bishop Cantoni to the Cardinalate, which we'll circle back to.
The Martinelli case has a coda, because under Vatican Law the prosecution can appeal cases and earlier this year, that's 2024, Father Martinelli was found guilty of corrupting a minor, that is, L.G., the same accuser as in the 2021 trial.
In September 2020, one of Bishop Cantoni's priests, Father Robero Malgesini, was murdered by a homeless person he was caring for. The event was widely covered in the press and prompted Pope Francis to praise God for quote “the martyrdom of this witness of charity toward the poorest”.
It should be noted that by all accounts Father Malgesini knew the risks associated with serving the outcasts, who often suffer mental illness. It should also be noted that in 2019, he was fined by local police for feeding people living under the portico of a former church, which, allow me to say, as the only official public policy position of Popeular History, **** such fines.
In 2022, in a somewhat surprising move, Pope Francis elevated Bishop Cantoni to the college of Cardinals and added him to the Dicastery for Bishops. I say somewhat sur prising because Como hasn't been headed by a Cardinal since 1694, so it's surprising in that sense, but people knew to expect surprises from Pope Francis by that point, it being his 8th consistory and all, so it would have been surprising if there had been no surprises on the list. Still, it's fair to ask, why Como?
This is always a matter of speculation, because Popes are absolute monarchs and are never expected to give reasons for choosing one possible Cardinal over another. But my guess is the safest one for any analysis: it's a combination of factors. The fluffiest is one I've seen elsewhere, namely leaning into the crimson of the martyrs worn by the Cardinals and seeking to honor a Diocese that had seen more martyrdom in the last generation than most in Italy, not just Father Malgesini, but also Bl. Sr. Maria Laura Mainetti, who was murdered by three teenage girls in a satanic ritual in 2000, dying while asking God to forgive her murderers, certainly a death more on the classic end of the martyrdom spectrum.
I think it's likely the Martinelli case also played a role, certainly in the form of delaying Bishop Cantoni's elevation, but also, well, hear me out here.
Pope Francis *really* likes to reach out to the marginalized. Like, it's a whole thing for him, and he has absolutely used his cardinatial appointments to do just that–Cardinal Cantoni was sandwiched between a Pacific Islander and an African American in the 2022 consistory. I'm by no means confident in this assessment, but I don't think the fact that Cardinal Cantoni had been recently facing criticism for his handling o f Father Martinelli's case hurt his standings in Pope Francis' assessment. Especially fresh off Martinelli’s initial acquittal, Pope Francis may have seen in Bishop Cantoni another marginalized individual.
One way or another, Cardinal Oscar CANTONI is eligible to participate in future conclaves until he turns 80 in 2030.
Today's episode is part of Cardinal Numbers. Stay tuned to see if today's Cardinal gets selected for a deeper dive in the next round! Thank you for listening; God bless you all!
Tuesday May 06, 2025
Tuesday May 06, 2025
Tuesday May 06, 2025
Check out Tsar Power: https://tsarpowerpod.weebly.com/Cardinal Marengo's episode: https://popeularhistory.podbean.com/e/cardinal-marengo/
Cardinal Krajewski's episode:https://popeularhistory.podbean.com/e/cardinal-konrad-krajewski-elevated-2018/
First Judgment with Tsar Power:https://popeularhistory.podbean.com/e/the-first-judgment-i/ IMAGE CREDIT:Photo courtesy of Cardinal Mykola Bychok.Via St Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church on Facebook
Wednesday May 07, 2025
Wednesday May 07, 2025
IMAGE CREDIT
Yohanes Kwirinus Steviean, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
LINKS
Vatican bio of Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo HARDJOATMODJO:
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_suharyohardjomatmodjo_i.html
Ignatius Suharyo HARDJOATMODJO on FIU's Cardinals Database (by Salvador Miranda):
https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios2019.htm#Hardjoatmodjo
2012 Synod of Bishops notes (via Zenit):
https://zenit.org/2012/10/17/full-text-of-tuesday-morning-interventions-at-synod-of-bishops/
Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo HARDJOATMODJO on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/p/3272
Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo HARDJOATMODJO on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bsuharyo.html
Archdiocese of Jakarta on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/dioceses/diocese/jaka0.htm?tab=info
Archdiocese of Jakarta on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/djaka.html
2013 Infovaticana profile of Cardinal-elect:
https://infovaticana.com/2013/12/10/10373/
2023 Time article on Nusantara:
https://time.com/6329063/indonesia-nusantara-jokowi-democratic-decline/
Thank you for listening, and thank my family and friends for putting up with the time investment and for helping me out as needed.
As always, feel free to email the show at Popeularhistory@gmail.com
If you would like to financially support Popeular history, go to www.patreon.com/Popeular. If you don't have any money to spare but still want to give back, pray and tell others– prayers and listeners are worth more than gold!
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights.
Check out the show notes for sources, further reading, and a transcript.
Today we're discussing another current Cardinal of the Catholic Church, one of the 120 or so people who will choose the next Pope when the time comes.
Ignatius Suharyo HARDJOATMODJO, who is generally addressed with the Suharyo part, was born on July 9, 1950 in Sedayu, a community right near the middle of the southern shore of the Island of Java. Home to over 150 million souls and therefore the most populated island in the world, Java hosts over half of Indonesia's population, with the remainder spread out across the other 17,000-odd islands that together make up the archipelagic nation, which was newly independent from the Dutch colonizers when Ignatius was born.
More Muslims live in Indonesia than in any other country, leaving relatively little room for any other faith. Christians Make up about 10% of the population, with Catholics in particular being about 3% of the overall total. Ignatius’ father had come from a Muslim family, being the only Catholic in the lot, while Ignatius’ mother had originally practiced Javanese folk religion with her family, though she later became Catholic.
When Ignatius’ convert parents embraced Catholicism, they ran with it, resulting in four of their ten Children entring the Church: two of his sisters became nuns; one of his brothers entered a Trappist hermitage, and of course Ignatius himself, who will be our focus today.
Ignatius’ seminary studies were done locally, first at the St. Peter Canisius Minor Seminary in Mertoyudan, then at the Sanata Dharma University in Yogyakarta, where he got a degree in theology and philosophy in 1971.
In 1976, Ignatius Suharyo was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Semarang by Cardinal Darmojuwono, who incidentally was the first Indonesian Cardinal. My sources are pretty thin after that, but I assume he did priest stuff in Indonesia until he went off to study in Rome, which I guess still falls under the umbrella of priest stuff. in any event, he wound up with a doctorate in Biblical Studies from the Urbaniana in 1981. When he came back to Java he took on several teaching roles at various institutions in Yogyakarta, eventually becoming dean of Theology at Holy Dharma University from 1993 till 1997.
I did a double take when I saw that name, Holy Dharma. Dharma is definitely more of a Hindu and Buddhist concept. So I took a closer look, and as near as I can tell–there are some discrepancies so take this with a grain of salt– but certainly it looks like the Jesuits are involved, which makes all the sense in the world if you know the Jesuits.
Speaking of Jesuits, in 1997 when Father Suharyo's white phone rang and JPII appointed him the Archbishop of Semarang, it was the Jesuit Cardinal Darmaatmadja, Indonesia's second Cardinal, who consecrated him.
In 2006, Archbishop Suharyo got a second hat when he was made the Military Ordinary for Indonesia, a post he still holds at time of recording. Not much later, in 2009, he was made the coadjutor Archbishop of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, a city larger than New York.
The following year, his predecessor retired and Archbishop Suharyo dropped the coadjutor part of his title, and from here on out he's Archbishop of Jakarta.
There's a bit of an interesting wrinkle though, as Indonesia is actually in the process of moving its capital entirely, off the crowded island of Java–and away from polluted Jakarta–onto the roomier and healthier island of Borneo. Seriously, Borneo is about 40 times less densely populated than Java, though of course the plan is to draw about 1.9 million people to the new scene there, so that's going to put a dent in the ratio.
The new capital, Nusantara, is set to be opened on August 17th, 2024, which is, incidentally, after I'm writing this but before this gets released, so you can let me know how that went. It'll be interesting to see how the Church handles the new arrangement, I expect the new Capital will get its own Diocese in time, but the Church isn't known for turning on a dime, and even after the transition is complete, smoggy Jakarta will still be Indonesia's largest city by far.
In 2012, Archbishop Suharyo was elected President of the Episcopal Conference of Indonesia, a post which he held until 2022, and in 2014 he was made a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
Archbishop Suharyo, who had been ordained by Indonesia's first cardinal and consecrated by its second, was made Indonesia’s third cardinal in October 2019, though he didn't take formal possession of his titular church until August 28th 2022, the day after that year's consistory. Something something COVID, something else something else, when in Rome.
In 2020, Cardinal Suharyo was added to the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialog, which makes sense, given his placement in a country where the majority of the population is Muslim. Speaking of, the Cardinal has noted that having prayers available in the vernacular language has a special appeal to Indonesians, as the local Muslims pray in Arabic even though they don’t speak it.
Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo is eligible to participate in future conclaves until he turns 80 in 2030.
Today's episode is part of Cardinal Numbers. Stay tuned to see if today's Cardinal gets selected for a deeper dive in the next round! Thank you for listening; God bless you all!
Thursday May 08, 2025
Thursday May 08, 2025
IMAGE CREDITMarinha do Brasil, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
LINKS
Vatican bio of Cardinal Orani João TEMPESTA:
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_tempesta_oj.html
Orani João TEMPESTA on FIU's Cardinals Database (by Salvador Miranda):
https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios2014.htm#Tempesta
Cardinal Orani João TEMPESTA on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/p/5693
Cardinal Orani João TEMPESTA on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/btempesta.html
Archdiocese of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/dioceses/diocese/zseb0.htm?tab=info
Archdiocese of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dsase.html
Abbey of Nossa Senhora de São Bernardo (Portuguese):
https://www.cistercienses.org.br/en/mosteiros-da-ordem-cisterciense/abadia-de-nossa-senhora-de-s%C3%A3o-bernardo
“Currently inhabited monasteries” on Cistopedia.org
https://www.cistopedia.org/index.php?id=580 2013 The Guardian reporting on World Youth Day in Rio:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/28/pope-world-youth-day-mass-rio
2016 Sim Sou Católico blog firefight coverage:
https://www.simsoucatolico.com.br/2016/06/cardeal-tempesta-fica-preso-em-tiroteio-no-rio-de-janeiro.html?m=1
The Guardian coverage of 2014 robbery:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/16/brazil-armed-robbers-rio-de-janeiro-archbishop
Thank you for listening, and thank my family and friends for putting up with the time investment and for helping me out as needed.
As always, feel free to email the show at Popeularhistory@gmail.com
If you would like to financially support Popeular history, go to www.patreon.com/Popeular. If you don't have any money to spare but still want to give back, pray and tell others– prayers and listeners are worth more than gold!
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights.
Check out the show notes for sources, further reading, and a transcript.
Today we're discussing another current Cardinal of the Catholic Church, one of the 120 or so people who will choose the next Pope when the time comes.
The youngest of nine, Orani João TEMPESTA, who typically drops the Orani part, was born on June 23, 1950 in São José do Rio Pardo, in the São Paulo state in southeastern Brazil.
We've had like a Brazilian Brazilian cardinals, so I'll skip the national details. And ok, just four, which is fewer than I was thinking, but I'm keeping the joke in anyways because it amuses me.
João joined the Cistercian Order in 1968 at the ripe old age of 17, entering the monastery of Nossa Senhora de São Bernardo, all without leaving his hometown, which must have been very convent. I mean convenient. Simple vows followed in ‘69, followed by a period of study with the ever popular combo of philosophy and theology, and then in 1972 he did his solemn profession.
As we'll see, it sometimes seems like João has a schedule to keep, and so like clockwork the next year he was made a deacon, and the year after that, 1974 if you've lost count, João Tempesta was ordained as a priest for the order by the local diocesan bishop, a fairly standard arrangement but hold that thought for later.
From 1974 to 1984, Father Tempesta served as the Vice-Prior of the monastery, which may have been the plan all along as they prepped him for the priesthood, given the nature of that as a sort of a vocation within the vocation in his religious life. In the same period, it's worth noting, he also served as vicar of the parish in town, which basically means he was second in command of both buildings. In 1984, he became first in command in both, starting with his elevation to Prior of the monastery in July, and then becoming pastor of the parish on December 7th, which incidentally was also the 10th anniversary of his priestly ordination.
By this point he was getting out more, he had actually already done some additional studying in the next state over that I glossed over, and at some point here he became a professor in the seminary in the cathedral city of São João da Boa Vista.
Father Tempesta’s time as Prior came to an end in 1993, but the best was yet to come. In ‘96 the monastery was promoted from a Priory to an Abbey, which is sort of kind of like a Diocese going to an Archdiocese, though I'm sure that analogy has its flaws. In any event, Tempesta the prior Prior was elected as its first abbot. Admittedly I'm more secure in my knowledge on the diocesan end, in part because the specific workings of religious orders vary from one order to the next and there are a LOT of different orders, but that's just as well, because Father Tempesta barely had time to get his special abbatial blessing before his white phone rang and he was chosen as the bishop of São José do Rio Preto. Seriously, it was about two and a half months from one to the other.
Perhaps surprisingly for a monk, as Bishop, Tempesta was rather engaged with media, being elected as member of the superior council of the Brazilian Institute of Christian Communications that oversees the #1 Catholic TV station in the country-and keep in mind this is the country with the most Catholics, period. Eventually, he would become that organization's president.
Ok, so now remember that thought I told you to hold about how it's fairly standard for a diocesan bishop to be involved in the running of local monasteries? Well, that wasn't always the case everywhere, though it *has* always been a thing… there's a lot I could get into here, and a lot I *will* get into in the main narrative of Popeular History about this, but suffice to say the model of monasteries as part of a larger diocese isn't the only model. There are also what's called territorial abbeys, where the Abbot actually has jurisdiction outside the Abbey itself over a certain geographic area, functioning as the Ordinary and canonical equivalent of a bishop over that surrounding area, not to mention over the Abbey itself. I'm bringing this up now because in 1999, Bishop Tempesta added Territorial Abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Claraval to his duties. Unfortunately, that fairly unique setup was not to last, as in 2002 Claraval lost its status as a Territorial Abbey, becoming part of the local diocese. My sense is that Tempesta, being a friendly Cistercian face but also a diocesan bishop, was chosen for the final Territorial Abbot role to help ease the transition.
I went down a bit of a rabbit hole myself to see if Claraval is still active- it became a Priory after losing its Territorial Abbacy status, and I did track down the name of a prior after Bishop-Abbot Tempesta, but their web presence doesn't seem to have been maintained [I said “on the mainland”, man I was tired recording this]. I did find an entry on them on Cistopedia, which is a resource I was happy to learn exists, and they’re listed there as an active monastery, but I wasn't able to conform to my satisfaction that that list itself was current.
Anyways, back to Bishop Tempesta, who is no doubt feeling the loss of what may well have been the last active territorial abbacy outside Europe, not counting a defunct one in North Korea, which remains active on the books as its own kind of statement.
In 2003, Tempesta was elected president of the Episcopal Commission for Culture, Education and Social Communications, a role which he held until 2011. Like I said, a surprisingly media-oriented monk.
In 2004 he became an archbishop, being promoted to the metropolitan see of Belém do Pará, well to the north of the country. Later that same year, he was made a titular member of National Council of Social Communications of the Federal Senate, whatever that is. But he refused to settle for the rank of titular member and became President of that council too in 2012. The man never met a council he didn't become president of.
In 2008 he got an honorary doctorate, which must have been nice, and in 2009 he was transferred to another see again, this time the top dog spot in the Archdiocese of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro. I know these Brazilian names can get a lot of names on them, but I bet you've heard of the town's shorter name, Rio. A city of six million with the giant hilltop Jesus statue I'm also willing to bet you're familiar with, Rio is neither Brazil’s capital nor it's largest city, but it's the place to be, especially if the year is 2013 and you're a Catholic, because then Rio was the host city of the much balleyhooed World Youth Day, a periodic mega gathering of young Catholics that often sets crowd record sizes for the Papal masses. The 2013 edition was attended by over 3 million people. Ok, the source I checked said “three million” for the final mass, not “over three million”, but I'm assuming there was at least one attendee that decided to skip the final mass that I can still include in the overall event tally, right?
Anyways, can you guess why I'm bringing all this up? Because the host was, of course, the local Archbishop, our friend, Tempesta.
Ok, I just looked at my word count and all I can say is oops. We better make Tempesta a Cardinal NOW. And so Pope Francis did, in his 2014 consistory.
In 2016, Cardinal Tempesta had to hide behind his car for 10 minutes when his trip was interrupted by a firefight between law enforcement and armed robbers. Just throwing that in in case you were wondering whether any cardinals have had to do *that*. Oh, for what it's worth, he had already personally been the victim of two armed robberies by that point, one in 2014, one in 2015. Like I said, clockwork. In 2014 they stole his ring, his crucifix, and his pen, that last one just seems petty.
In addition to everything else he’s up to, Cardinal Tempesta is currently a member of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, as well as the following Dicasteries-
-For Culture and Education,
-For Evangelization, and
-For Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
Orani João Cardinal TEMPESTA is eligible to participate in future conclaves until he turns 80 in 2030.
Today's episode is part of Cardinal Numbers. Stay tuned to see if today's Cardinal gets selected for a deeper dive in the next round! Thank you for listening; God bless you all!
Thursday May 08, 2025
Thursday May 08, 2025
IMAGE CREDIT
Claude Truong-Ngoc / Wikimedia Commons - cc-by-sa-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsLINKS
Vatican bio of Cardinal Kurt KOCH:
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_koch_k.html
Kurt KOCH on FIU's Cardinals Database (by Salvador Miranda):
https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios2010.htm#Koch
Cardinal Kurt KOCH on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/p/4021
Cardinal Kurt KOCH on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bkoch.html
Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity on Gcatholic.org:
https://gcatholic.org/dioceses/romancuria/d16.htm
Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:
https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dxpcu.html
Basel Cathedral website discussing the canons:
https://www.bistum-basel.ch/news/drei-neue-domherren-eingesetzt
La Repubblica 1995 article on Bishop Vogel’s resignation and son:
https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1995/06/03/il-vescovo-si-dimette-aspetto-un.html
Nostra Aetate:
https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html
2012 Catholic News Service overview of Cardinal Koch's comments on conservative Catholics and Judaism (archived via Library of Congress Web Archives):
https://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20121205205921/http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1202023.htm
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TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights.
Check out the show notes for sources, further reading, and a transcript.
Today we're discussing another current Cardinal of the Catholic Church, one of the 120 or so people who will choose the next Pope when the time comes.
Kurt KOCH was born on March 15, 1950, Emmenbrücke a town just north of the middle of Switzerland, in the Canton of Lucerne.
Cardinal Koch is the second Swiss-born Cardinal we've met after Cardinal Tscherrig, the Nuncio’s Nuncio we met last summer. But at the time we had dozens of countries involved, because, well, nuncio's nuncio, and didn't get a chance to just talk Switzerland.
These days Switzerland is famous for their neutrality, staying out of pretty much every conflict they can avoid. Perhaps that’s in part due to the fact that it used to be a battleground, especially in the rolling conflicts between the Popes in Italy and the Holy Roman Emperors in Germany. When the Reformation came, Switzerland was again divided in loyalty between largely Catholic southern Europe and largely Protestant northern Europe. One of the fruits of conflict, for better or for worse, is military skill, which is how the Swiss Guard that still protects the Vatican today came about. Fortunately, like I mentioned, the Swiss came to embrace neutrality, including in religion, with laws allowing for freedom of conscience–first just among Christian denominations and then more broadly. Keep this context of conflict to resolution in the back of your mind as we go.
Kurt Koch studied Theology at the University of Lucerne in Switzerland, then went to Munich Germany to study more theology, getting a diploma in theology in 1975. He served as a research assistant at the University of Lucerne from ‘76 to ‘81, presumably while studying even More theology, and soon after he was ordained a priest for his home Diocese of Basel in 1982. This is actually the first time I've seen someone ordained apparently without any specific philosophy training, going pure theology isn't as normal as one might expect.
After a period of chaplaincy, his theology studies continued, and in 1987 he wound up with a doctorate in, you guessed it, theology. I expected he’d stop there, or perhaps get another doctorate, but apparently in Kurt's neck of the woods there's another step you can go beyond a simple doctorate, the Habilitation, which basically works out to full professorship. The most surprising thing about this to me is that this is the first time I'm realizing it, it's extremely possible- I would say likely- that he actually isn't our first Cardinal to achieve this level, I just didn't flag it before and my sources described it differently this time. Part of why I love doing this is it lets me learn something every day.
Anyways, after obtaining his habilitation, Father Koch became Professor of dogmatics, liturgy and ecumenical theology at the Theological Faculty of the University of Lucerne from 1989, a post he held until 1996. He was also simultaneously rector for a short time, though that was interrupted by a call. Normally this would be a tongue-in-cheek note about a white phone, but in this case the call was coming from the Cathedral Chapter of the Diocese of Basel, because it was actually their job to elect the next Bishop of Basel and they wanted to choose Father Koch.
Of course, much like my normal white phone joke, this isn't necessarily *exactly* how it went down, since for all I know maybe Father Koch *was* one of the Canons of Basel Cathedral and no phone was needed for the news. But either way, my point is that unlike the typical process for most dioceses, where the relevant nuncio and the relevant Dicastery work with the Pope to figure out new bishops, Basel uses the old Cathedral Chapter model, where there’s a local election among the members of the Chapter.
The Cathedral Chapter might have been a little sheepish, because they had actually just elected a new Bishop of Basel, who had found himself under a lot of psychological pressure–being a bishop isn't easy–and had wound up going to an old friend for comfort. A female friend, who wound up pregnant. He resigned, got laicized, and married her. Hopefully he's a better traditional father than he was a spiritual one.
Bishop Koch received his episcopal consecration directly and personally from Pope John Paul II in the Vatican, possibly because everyone was wanting to do things right after the last kerfuffle, though I don’t have any source claiming that, just a guess.
The University Of Lucerne made him an honorary professor on his way out the door, a nice gesture, presumably a sort of “you're welcome to come back by any time” kind of arrangement.
Bishop Koch got involved in the Swiss Bishop's conference, serving as their Vice-President for nine years, and as their President for three. Together that represents pretty much his entire time as a bishop in Switzerland, because in 2010 Bishop Koch was called up to the Vatican to head the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, of which he had been a member since 2002. To fit the dignity of his new office, he was promoted to Archbishop and then Cardinal.
Speaking of archbishops, today I learned Switzerland has no archbishops, all six dioceses are immediately subject to the Holy See, meaning if there's something that would normally involve an Archbishop, it goes to the Vatican. But enough about Switzerland, we're in Rome now.
Pope Benedict had Cardinal Koch jump in headfirst, heading a delegation to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew–the leader of the Orthodox, the largest Christian Church outside of Catholicism, and co-presiding over a meeting of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church with his Orthodox counterpart. In December, Pope Benedict also added Koch to the Congregation for the Oriental Churches and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
What a difference a year makes, Koch had started the year as a simple bishop, now he was pretty much everywhere.
Cardinal Koch's big Christian unity gig also extends outside Christianity, as the head of that dicastery is also automatically the President of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. Sometimes the two overlap, like when he's talking with traditionalists who are to varying degrees reluctant to embrace Jews as their brothers. In those cases he points to Nostra Aetate, essentially the Catholic Church's foundational document on religious freedom, which explicitly decries antisemitism, and which Cardinal Koch has called “important for every Catholic”.
In addition to dozens of articles and papers, Cardinal Koch has written at least fifteen books.
Originally elevated as a Cardinal-Deacon, Cardinal Koch exercised his right to become a Cardinal-Priest after ten years of service as a Cardinal.
In addition to the roles we've already discussed, Cardinal Koch is currently a member of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints; the Dicastery for Bishops; and the Dicastery for Culture and Education.
A veteran of the 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis, Kurt Cardinal KOCH is eligible to participate in future conclaves until he turns 80 in 2030.
Today's episode is part of Cardinal Numbers. Stay tuned to see if today's Cardinal gets selected for a deeper dive in the next round! Thank you for listening; God bless you all!