Amleto Giovanni Cicognani

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Styles of Amleto Cardinal Cicognani
Reference style	His Eminence
Spoken style	Your Eminence
Informal style	Cardinal
See	Palestrina (suburbicarian), Ostia (suburbicarian)

Amleto Giovanni Cardinal Cicognani (February 24, 1883—December 17, 1973) was an Italian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Vatican Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969, and Dean of the College of Cardinals from 1972 until his death. Cicognani was elevated to the cardinalate in 1958.

[edit] Biography

Amleto Cicognani was born in Brisighella, near Faenza, as the youngest of the two children of Guglielmo and Anna (née Ceroni) Cicognani. His widowed mother ran a general store to support him and his brother, Gaetano^[1]. After studying at the seminary in Faenza, he was ordained a priest on September 23, 1905 by Bishop Gioacchino Cantagalli. Cicognani continued his studies at the Pontifical Roman Athenaeum S. Apollinare, and in 1910 he was appointed an official of the Sacred Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments. First raised to the rank of Monsignor in 1917, he taught at his alma mater of the Athenaeum S. Apollinare from 1921 to 1932, and then entered the Roman Curia, as substitute adjunct of the Consistorial, on December 16, 1922.

After holding a variety of pastoral and curial positions, Cicognani was appointed Apostolic Delegate to the United States and Titular Archbishop of Laodicea in Phrygia on March 17, 1933. He received his episcopal consecration on the following April 23 from Raffaele Cardinal Rossi, with Archbishops Giuseppe Pizzardo and Carlo Salotti serving as co-consecrators, in the Roman church of Santa Susanna. Cicognani would remain Apostolic Delegate to the United States, serving as liaison between the American hierarchy and the Vatican, for the next 25 years.

He was created Cardinal Priest of S. Clemente by Pope John XXIII in the consistory of December 15, 1958. Cicognani's cardinalatial title was later changed to Cardinal Bishop of Frascati on May 23, 1962. His elevation to the College of Cardinals is extraordinary in the fact that his brother Gaetano was also a cardinal, having been elevated in 1953, and an exception had to be made to the Church law prohibiting brothers from simultaneously being in the College together.

On November 14, 1959, Cicognani became Secretary of the Congregation for Oriental Churches. He was later named to the posts of Vatican Secretary of State, President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State, and President of the Cardinals' Commission for Administration of the Goods of the Holy See on August 12, 1961^{[2] [3]}. With the appointments of 1962, Cicognani essentially became the foreign minister, prime minister, and interior minister of the Vatican.

He attended the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), at which he served as Chairman of the Secretariat for Extraordinary Questions^[4]. Cicognani was also one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 1963 papal conclave, which selected Pope Paul VI.

On April 30, 1969, Cicognani resigned all of his posts. However, on March 24, 1972, he was elected and confirmed as Dean of the College of Cardinals and thus received the title of the suburbicarian see of Ostia, in addition to his title of Cardinal Bishop of Frascati.

Cicognani died in Rome, following a brief illness, at age 90^[5]. He is buried in the Basilica di San Clemente.

[edit] Trivia

• The Italian prelate was considered to rather conservative in his views. He sought to stem ecumenism in the Catholic Church in America^[6], and was once described as not being open to renewal^[7].

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Catholic-Hierarchy
• Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church