Santiago Copello

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Styles of Santiago Cardinal Copello


Reference style	His Eminence
Spoken style	Your Eminence
Informal style	Cardinal
See	Buenos Aires (emeritus)

[edit] Biography

Born in San Isidoro, La Plata, Santiago Copello studied at the seminary in La Plata and the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome before being ordained to the priesthood on October 28, 1902. He then did pastoral work in La Plata from 1903 to 1918.

On November 8, 1918, Copello was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of La Plata and Titular Bishop of Aulon. He received his episcopal consecration on March 30, 1919, from Bishop Juan Terrero y Escalada, with Bishops Francisco Alberti and José Orzali serving as co-consecrators. After becoming Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires on May 15, 1928, Copello was named Vicar General of the same and Vicar of the Argentine Military Ordinariate on the following June 12. He was later made Vicar Capitular on August 2, 1932, and advanced to Archbishop of Buenos Aires on September 20 of that same year.

Pope Pius XI created Copello Cardinal Priest of S. Girolamo dei Croati in the consistory of December 16, 1935, and thus the first cardinal from Argentina and Spanish America. Raised to the rank of Primate of the Church in Argentina on January 29, 1936, Copello was one of the cardinal electors in the 1939 papal conclave that selected Pope Pius XII. In November 1945, he prohibited Argentine Catholics from supporting parties or candidates who promoted the separation of Church and State, removing religion from public schools, or legalizing civil divorce in the February 1946 elections^[1]. Copello even had a parish priest removed from his position for criticizing President Juan Perón^[2]. After attending the first general conference of the Latin American Episcopal Conference in 1955, he was then forced to took residence in the Roman Curia because of the high tensions between the Peronist regime and the Roman Catholic Church.

The Cardinal participated in the conclave of 1958, which resulted in the election of Pope John XXIII. He resigned, after twenty-six years of service, as Buenos Aires' archbishop on March 25, 1959, and was appointed Apostolic Chancellor on the same date (remaining in that post until his death). Copello thus became Cardinal Priest of S. Lorenzo in Damaso on December 14, 1959. From 1962 to 1965, he attended the Second Vatican Council, during the course of which he served as a cardinal elector in the 1963 papal conclave that selected Pope Paul VI.

Copello died in Rome, at age 87. He is buried in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral.

Preceded by José Bottaro y Hers, OFM	Archbishop of Buenos Aires 1932–1959	Succeeded by Fermín Lafitte
Preceded by Celso Cardinal Costantini	Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church 25 March 1959–9 February 1967	Succeeded by Luigi Traglia