Alfredo Ottaviani
Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani (born October 29, 1890 in Rome , Italy , † August 3, 1979 in the Vatican ) was a Curia Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church .
Life
Ottaviani was born on October 29, 1890 in Rome as the twelfth and youngest child of a married couple and became a theologian and canon lawyer. In Rome he also received the sacrament of ordination on March 18, 1916 .
From 1926 to 1928 he was rector of the Collegium Bohemicum in Rome. In 1928 and 1929 Ottaviani was secretary of the Congregation for Extra-Church Affairs and from June 7, 1929 a substitute at the State Secretariat , initially under Cardinal State Secretary Gasparri. Since December 19, 1935 he was assessor at the Holy Office, today's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith . Pope Pius XII took him on January 12, 1953 as a cardinal deacon with the title deaconry Santa Maria in Domnica in the college of cardinals and on January 15 of the same year appointed him pro-secretary of the office . On November 7, 1959 he was by Pope John XXIII. elevated to secretary of the office.
Appointed titular Archbishop of Berrhoea pro hac vice on April 5, 1962 , he received on April 19 of that year by Pope John XXIII. the Bishop ordination ; Co-consecrators were the cardinals Giuseppe Pizzardo and Benedetto Aloisi Masella . As cardinal protodeacon, he announced the election of Paul VI with the Habemus papam . Ottaviani was the last cardinal for the time being to receive the honor of papal coronation. Under Paul VI. he was cardinal secretary from 1963 to December 1965, then until January 6, 1968 the first prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith . This was re-established in 1965 in succession to the Holy Office. On June 26, 1967, he was named a cardinal priest pro hac vice , raising his title diakonia to the title church .
He died in the Vatican on August 3, 1979 after a long illness .
Role at the council and after
From 1960 he headed the theological preparatory commission for the Second Vatican Council and from 1962 the council commission. Cardinal Ottaviani was, together with Cardinals Giuseppe Siri and Ernesto Ruffini, an important representative of the conservative camp at the Second Vatican Council, which met in the Coetus Internationalis Patrum . In his leadership role in the preparatory commission, he and Cardinal Michael Browne played a key role in the development of draft documents.
In July 1967 Ottaviani examined the Eucharistic Prayers II, III and IV and found them to be theologically sound. These were drawn up by the Consilium for the implementation of the liturgical reform according to criteria of the Roman tradition. Ottaviani raised reservations about design V, which was based on the Basilius anaphora , because this design approached the oriental tradition too closely and could have justified a “mixed rite”. The subsequent liturgical reform respected these concerns and only four prayers were provided for the Roman Missal in the 1970 edition.
In 1968 Ottoviani belonged to the minority of bishops who supported the encyclical Humanae vitae , while the bishops from the German-speaking countries in particular expressed criticism of the encyclical with the German Königstein Declaration , the Swiss Solothurn Declaration and the Austrian Mariatroster Declaration .
In 1970, then already 80 years old, Ottaviani protested against Paul VI's decision to exclude all cardinals over 80 from the conclave and accused the Pope of "disregarding a centuries-old tradition".
theology
Cardinal Ottaviani, personally a sociable man with an interest in pastoral care, vigorously opposed atheistic ideologies, especially the Soviet model of communism . However, he came forward as early as 1947 with the demand “Bellum omnino est interdicendum” (“The war is completely forbidden”), which became the official ecclesiastical position in the Second Vatican Council. Ottaviani supported the majority in the deliberations on the pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes , which the church wanted to commit to the goal of the complete abolition of war.
In retirement, Ottaviani became a critic of the liturgical reform, together with Antonio Bacci and others at the same time as the movement of Marcel Lefebvre . Under the term Ottaviani Intervention , the book Brief critical examination of the new "Ordo Missae" , in which the post-conciliar liturgical reform is sharply criticized, became known. Pope Paul VI corresponded to this criticism insofar as a Prooemium was written for the Missal of 1970, which explained in detail the compatibility of the reform with the Roman tradition. The letter was probably written by a group of conservative clerics close to the Coetus Internationalis Patrum and signed by Alfredo Ottaviani and Antonio Bacci.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Franjo Šeper , who himself was no friend of the liturgical reform and repeatedly opposed the liturgical reformer Annibale Bugnini , rejected the investigation on November 12, 1969 as superficial and false.
Crimen sollicitationis and child sexual abuse
Alfredo Ottaviani wrote for the Vatican in 1962, confirmed by Pope John XXIII. a 69-page letter: Crimen sollicitationis . It set out detailed rules on how to conduct an ecclesiastical investigation into cases where a priest is accused of sexual abuse in any connection with the sacrament of confession. Judges and other ex officio participants in the investigation ("anyone who belongs in any way to the court") would automatically be subject to excommunication if they revealed anything about the course of the investigation, even if a judgment has already been pronounced and implemented (Paragraph 11). This threat of punishment does not apply to the plaintiff or to other witnesses (para. 13). On the contrary, anyone who does not report such abuse within a month, in the knowledge of such abuse, is automatically subject to excommunication and can only receive absolution after reporting the priest or at least seriously promising it (para. 18). The violation of confidentiality by the accused was also not proven with excommunication, but with suspension (para. 13).
In 2003, 24 years after Ottaviani's death, this document was presented by media reports as an attempt to “cover up sexual abuse”. Some reported that plaintiffs would be excommunicated if they made their charges public and that the document was being kept in the Vatican's secret archives , where it was found by a lawyer investigating sexual abuse by Catholic priests. In fact, however, the letter was sent to “all patriarchs, archbishops, bishops and ordinariates, including Eastern churches” and could be found there.
Fonts
- Alfredo Ottaviani, Antonio Bacci (Ed.): Brief critical examination of the new "Ordo Missae" . Rome, September 25, 1969.
Web links
- Ottaviani, Alfredo. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website), accessed November 21, 2016.
- Entry on Alfredo Ottaviani on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on November 21, 2016.
Individual evidence
- ↑ zeit.de: The pill remains banned. August 2, 1968, accessed November 23, 2016
- ^ Giancarlo Zizola : The successor. Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1997, p. 72.
- ↑ To the side. Spiegel Online, December 7, 1970, accessed November 30, 2013 .
- ↑ Unofficial translation by the Holy See of the letter Crimen sollicitationis
- ↑ Vatican told bishops to cover up sex abuse. The Observer, August 17, 2003
- ↑ Priests should hide sexual abuse. Süddeutsche Zeitung, August 19, 2003
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Nicola Cardinal Canali |
Cardinal Protodiacon 1961-1967 |
Arcadio María Cardinal Larraona CMF |
| The Pope has always been the Prefect of the Holy Office |
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 1965–1968 |
Franjo Cardinal Šeper |
| Giuseppe Cardinal Pizzardo |
Secretary of the Holy Office 1959–1965 |
--- |
| Giuseppe Cardinal Bruno |
Chamberlain of the Holy College of Cardinals 1954–1958 |
Cardinal Eugène Tisserant |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ottaviani, Alfredo |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ottaviani, Alfredo Cardinal |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian Cardinal Curia of the Roman Catholic Church |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 29, 1890 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rome |
| DATE OF DEATH | 3rd August 1979 |
| Place of death | Vatican |