Kolos Ferenc Vaszary

Cardinal Kolos Ferenc Vaszary, O.S.B. (born February 12, 1832, Keszthely, Hungary; died September 3, 1915, Balatonfüred, Hungary) was a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and a longtime archbishop of the prestigious see of Esztergom in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

He entered the Order of Saint Benedict in 1847 and was professed on June 6 1854. Two years later he was ordained ot the priesthood, and for a very long time he worked as a school teacher. His skill in this field became regarded so highly that, though not already consecrated a bishop, he became primate of Hungary in 1891. Because Esztergom (which contains the Hungarian capital of Budapest) has been traditionally a cardinalate see, at the beginning of 1893 Pope Leo XIII elevated him to the cardinalate. At this time the Habsburg monarchy recognised his services to the community by giving him the order of Sankt Stefan.infobox cardinalstyles
cardinal name=Kolos Ferenc Cardinal Vaszary
dipstyle=His Eminence
offstyle=Your Eminence
See=Esztergom|Cardinal Vaszary served as an Archbishop for twenty years, participating in the conclave of 1903. At a time when bishops typically served as long as they lived, Cardinal Vaszary's declining health was ignored by Pope Pius X even when he passed what would today be the retirement age for bishops (75 years old). By November 1912 his health was so bad that it was absolutely impossible for him to continue fulfilling any of the work of an archbishop, and thus he announced his resignation. Because of the connections between the Catholic Church and the Habsburg Empire, "both the Pope and the Emperor" had to accept his resignation before it was valid - which they did in the first week of 1913.

Already eighty-two - an age which today would forbid a cardinal from participating in a conclave - when Pius X died, Cardinal Vaszary was quite unable to participate in the conclave which elected Pius X's successor.

External links

* [http://www.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios1893.htm#Vaszary Biography]