Franjo Šeper

His Eminence Franjo Šeper
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Church	Roman Catholic
Archdiocese	Zagreb
Appointed	8 January 1968
Term ended	25 November 1981
Predecessor	Alfredo Ottaviani
Successor	Joseph Ratzinger
Other posts	Cardinal-Priest of SS Pietro e Paolo a Via Ostiense
Orders
Ordination	26 October 1930 by Giuseppe Palica
Consecration	21 September 1954 by Josip Antun Ujcic
Created Cardinal	22 February 1965
Rank	Cardinal-Priest
Personal details
Born	(1905-10-02)2 October 1905 Osijek
Died	30 December 1981(1981-12-30) (aged 76)
Nationality	Croatian
Previous post	Coadjutor Archbishop of Zagreb (1954-1960) Titular Archbishop of Philippopolis in Thracia (1954-1960) Archbishop of Zagreb (1960-1969)
Coat of arms

Styles of Franjo Šeper
Reference style	His Eminence
Spoken style	Your Eminence
Informal style	Cardinal

Franjo Šeper (2 October 1905, Osijek – 30 December 1981, Rome) was a Croatian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1968-81, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1965.

Life and Ministry

Born in Osijek, in the Austro-Hungarian Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia (present-day Croatia), he and his family moved to Zagreb in 1910; his father was a tailor and his mother a seamstress. Studying in Zagreb and Rome (including the Pontifical Gregorian University), Šeper was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Giuseppe Palica on 26 October 1930. He did pastoral work in the Archdiocese of Zagreb and, in 1934, was appointed private secretary to the Archbishop. In 1941 Father Šeper became the rector of the archdiocesan seminary, a post which he held for the next decade. On 22 July 1954 he was named Coadjutor Archbishop of Zagreb and Titular Archbishop of Philippopolis; he received his episcopal consecration on the following 21 September from Archbishop Josip Ujčić of Belgrade.

Archbishop of Zagreb

He succeeded Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac as Archbishop of Zagreb on 5 March 1960, and was created Cardinal-Priest of Ss. Pietro e Paolo a Via Ostiense by Pope Paul VI in the consistory of 22 February 1965. He resigned as Archbishop of Zagreb on 20 August 1969. He had advocated religious liberty and the introduction of the vernacular into the liturgy during the Second Vatican Council. In one speech to the Council he said: "We must admit that Chtistians who defended the established order and the unchangeableness of social structures too stubbornly, wrongly appealing to God's authority, are partly responsible for modern atheism."^[1]

During his visit to the United States in 1966, he received an honorary doctorate from Villanova University.

Prefect of the CDF

He was named Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on 8 January 1968. Šeper was the author of the document Mysterium Ecclesiae, which was written in order to re-orient the ecclesiology of the post-Vatican II period. Šeper was also the President of the International Theological Commission from its inception in April 1969.

In 1974, the Congregation published a "declaration on procured abortion", re-asserting the Church's opposition to the controversial procedure since the publication of Humanae Vitae. It later published the document Persona Humana^[2] on the topic of sexual ethics.

In 1976, he was responsible for writing the statement Inter Insigniores, which firmly rejected the ordination of women in the Catholic Church. In 1980, he also wrote the CDF's declaration on Euthanasia, explaining the Church's view on ending life.

Cardinal

He was a cardinal elector in the August and October conclaves of 1978.

Death and legacy

Pope John Paul II accepted Šeper's resignation as Prefect on 25 November 1981. He died on 30 December in Gemelli Hospital, where had been hospitalized for a month.^[3] John Paul presided at his funeral Mass, and Seper's body was later transferred to Zagreb, where it is buried beside the tomb of Cardinal Stepinac.

References

External links

• Michael Davies's account of his 1980 meeting with Šeper