Corrado Bafile
Corrado Cardinal Bafile (born July 4, 1903 in L'Aquila , Italy ; † February 3, 2005 in Rome ) was Apostolic Nuncio in Germany and later Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints .
Life
Corrado Bafile was the twelfth and last child of the doctor Vincenzo Bafile and his wife Maddalena née Tedeschini-D'Annibale. After completing his schooling at universities in Munich and Rome, he first studied chemistry (with Richard Willstätter ), then law , and after completing his professional training in Rome , he obtained his doctorate. iur. and practiced as a lawyer in Rome and Munich for six years before he decided to give up his secular profession, entered the Pontifical Roman Seminary in Rome and studied Catholic theology and philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University .
On April 11, 1936, he was ordained a priest in Rome . He then continued his studies at the Pontifical Diplomatic Academy and in 1944 obtained a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical Athenaeum Lateranense . Initially, he worked in the administration of the Vatican State Secretariat . In 1939 he entered the diplomatic service of the Vatican. During this time, Bafile worked part-time in pastoral care. a. also in the leadership of the Legionaries of Mary in Italy. On November 1, 1958, Bafile became the first of the four real secret chambers on duty in the Vatican.
On February 13, 1960 he was by Pope John XXIII. appointed titular Archbishop of Antioch in Pisidia , on March 19 of the same year the Pope himself donated his episcopal ordination ; Co- consecrators were Diego Venini , almsman of His Holiness , and Peter Canisus van Lierde , papal sacristan. From 1960 to 1975 he was Aloysius Muench's successor as Apostolic Nuncio and diplomatic representative of the Vatican in the Federal Republic of Germany . As doyen of the Federal German diplomatic corps , he had a variety of social and representative tasks to perform in Bonn ; he had a personal friendship with Konrad Adenauer . Because of his great diplomatic influence and his skill in asserting conservative positions, the German tabloids called him a "tiger in a velvet robe". He managed to conclude a concordat and several contracts. Bafile became an honorary member of the Catholic student associations K.St.V. in 1961 and 1963 respectively. Unitas-Breslau to Cologne in the KV and KDSt.V. Ripuaria Bonn in the CV .
In 1973, Bafile caused a sensation in the Federal Republic of Germany with the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to have the Limburg Bishop Wilhelm Kempf disempowered by a secret letter to Cardinal Secretary of State Jean Villot and to force him to resign. A copy of the letter was sent to Kempf through an unknown employee of the State Secretariat, who thus addressed the German bishops' conference and the German press. The background was evidently the position of Kempf on the issues of compulsory celibacy for priests and the participation of lay people in the diocese leadership.
In 1975 he returned to the Vatican, where he assumed a leading position as Pro-Prefect of the Congregation for Canonization. On May 24, 1976 he was appointed by Pope Paul VI. as Cardinal Deacon with the title deaconry Santa Maria in portico in the Cardinal College added. From 1976 to 1980 he headed the Congregation for the Causes of Saints as Cardinal Prefect . On June 22, 1987 he was appointed cardinal priest while retaining his title diaconia, which had been pro hac vice to the title church . In 2003 John Paul II received him to congratulate him on his 100th birthday. Cardinal Bafile had been the oldest member of the College of Cardinals since 2000 and the oldest Catholic bishop since the death of José Calasanz Rosenhammer .
He died at the age of 102 on February 3, 2005 in the Clinica Pio XI in Rome . He was temporarily buried in the family crypt in L'Aquila, but is later to be transferred to the parish church of Santa Maria Paganica in L'Aquila, where he was baptized.
literature
- Walter Henkels : 99 Bonn heads , revised and supplemented edition, Fischer-Bücherei, Frankfurt am Main 1965, p. 23f.
- Corrado Cardinal Bafile , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 23/2005 of June 11, 2005, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
Web links
- Bafile, Corrado. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website), accessed August 6, 2016.
- Entry on Corrado Bafile on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on August 6, 2016.
- Official biography on the Vatican website
- Exequien led by Cardinal Ratzinger
Individual evidence
- ↑ Walter Henkels: 99 Bonn heads. Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf / Vienna 1963, p. 25
- ↑ Negative Police , in: Der Spiegel 41/1973
- ↑ Domradio interview with Hubert Wolf
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Bruno Bernhard Heim (executive) |
Apostolic Nuncio in Germany 1960–1975 |
Guido del Mestri |
| Cardinal Luigi Raimondi |
Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints 1976–1980 |
Pietro Cardinal Palazzini |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bafile, Corrado |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bafile, Cardinal Corrado (full name); Bafile, Konrad (official name as Nuncio in Germany) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian Roman Catholic theologian, diplomat, apostolic nuncio in Germany and cardinal |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 4th July 1903 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | L'Aquila , Italy |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 3, 2005 |
| Place of death | Rome |