Clemente Micara

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Styles of Clemente Cardinal Micara
Reference style	His Eminence
Spoken style	Your Eminence
Informal style	Cardinal
See	Velletri-Segni (suburbicarain)

Clemente Cardinal Micara (December 24, 1879—March 11, 1965) was an Italian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Vicar General of Rome from 1951 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1946.

[edit] Biography

Born in Frascati, Clemente Micara attended the Pontifical Roman Seminary, the Pontifical Gregorian University, the Pontifical Lateran University, and the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy. He was ordained to the priesthood on September 20, 1902, and finished his studies in 1904. After entering the Roman Curia, in the Secretariat of State, in 1904, Micara was named secretary of the nunciature to Argentina in 1909. He was raised to the rank of Privy Chamberlain of His Holiness on January 5, 1910, and later Domestic Prelate of His Holiness on August 21, 1918. Micara was made auditor of the Belgian nunciature on April 16, 1915, and of the Austrain nunciature in 1916.

On May 7, 1920, he was appointed the first Nuncio to Czechoslovakia and Titular Archbishop of Apamea in Syria. He received his episcopal consecration on the following August 8 from Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, with Bishops Antonio Valbonesi and Karl Kašpar serving as co-consecrators, in the chapel of the Bohemian College in Rome. After being named Nuncio to Belgium and Internuncio to Luxembourg on May 30, 1923, Micara bestowed the Golden Rose to Queen Elizabeth of Belgium as a papal representative on December 10, 1925. He resided in Rome during the Nazi occupation of Belgium from 1940 to 1944, at which time the nuncio resumed his post.

Pope Pius XII created Micara Cardinal Priest of S. Maria sopra Minerva in the consistory of February 18, 1946, and then Cardinal Bishop of Velletri-Segni on June 13 of that same year, while retaining his previous cardinalatial title. On November 11, 1950, he was made Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, and Pro-Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites in the Roman Curia.

Micara was appointed Vice-Dean of the College of Cardinals on January 13, 1951, and Vicar General of Rome on the following January 26. In his capacity of Vicar General, Micara served as the unofficial Bishop of Rome, for the title officially belongs to the Pope, who delegates the day-to-day administration of the diocese to his Vicar. In 1953, he resigned as Prefect of Religious (January 17) and Pro-Prefect of Rites (January 26). For the 1953 Italian general election, he urged the Catholics of Rome to "[v]ote well, vote as Catholics, vote as Romans"^[1].

After serving as a cardinal elector in the 1958 papal conclave that selected Pope John XXIII, Micara participated in the conclave of 1963, which resulted in the election of Pope Paul VI. He became known as the "Grand Elector" among the Curia because of his influential role in obtaining the conservative cardinals' votes for Pope Paul, with whom he was friends, in the latter conclave^[2]. Seen as a progressive^[3], the Cardinal lived long enough to only attend the first three sessions of the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1964.

He died after a long illness^[4] in Rome, at age 85, and is buried in the basilica of S. Maria sopra Minerva.

• Micara was also President of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology from 1951 until his death.

[edit] References

1. ^ TIME Magazine. On the Eve June 8, 1953
2. ^ TIME Magazine. Milestones May 19, 1965
3. ^ Ibid.
4. ^ Ibid.

[edit] External links

• Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church
• Catholic-Hierarchy