Gaetano Cicognani

infobox cardinalstyles
cardinal name=Gaetano Cardinal Cicognani
dipstyle=His Eminence
offstyle=Your Eminence
See=Frascati (suburbicarain)|

Gaetano Cardinal Cicognani (November 26, 1881—February 5, 1962) was an Italian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura from 1954 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1953 by Pope Pius XII.

Biography

Gaetano Cicognani was born in Brisighella to Guglielmo Cicognani and his wife Anna Ceroni. His brother, Amleto, was born over a year later in 1883. To support Gaetano and his brother, their widowed mother ran a general store [Time Magazine. [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,895661,00.html The Vatican's No. 2] August 25, 1961] . Cicognani studied at the seminary in Faenza, and was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Gioacchino Cantagalli on September 24, 1904. He then went to Rome to attend the Pontifical Roman Athenaeum "S. Apollinare" and Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy.

After working in the Roman Rota and Apostolic Signatura, Cicognani taught at the Pontifical Roman Seminary and later entered the Secretariat of State in 1915. He became secretary of the Spanish nunciature on February 1, 1916, and a Privy Chamberlain of His Holiness on March 9, 1916. He was made auditor of the nunciature to Belgium on February 3, 1920.

On January 11, 1925, Cicognani was appointed Nuncio to Bolivia and Titular Archbishop of "Ancyra". He received his episcopal consecration on the following February 1 from Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, with Archbishops Rafaello Rossi, OCD, and Giovanni Zonghi serving as co-consecrators, in the chapel of the Pontifical "Collegio Pio-Latinoamericano" in Rome. Cicognani was later named Nuncio to Peru on June 15, 1928, to Austria on June 13, 1936, and to Spain on May 16, 1938.

Pope Pius XII created him Cardinal Priest of "S. Cecilia" in the consistory of January 12, 1953. Cicognani returned to work in the Roman Curia upon his appointment as Prefect of the Congregation of Rites on December 7 of that same year. He became Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura on November 18, 1954, and was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 1958 papal conclave that selected Pope John XXIII. That December, his brother Amleto, by a special dispensation of canon law, was also elevated to the College of Cardinals. This law had so distressed Gaetano (as he felt it curbed his brother's career) that he once came close to tears when someone jokingly said, "Because of you, your brother cannot become cardinal" [Ibid.] . On December 14, 1959, he was named Cardinal Bishop of Frascati by Pope John.

He died in Rome, at age 80, and is buried in the collegiate church of "S. Michele" in his native Brisighella.

Trivia

* In April 1934, Archbishop Cicognani, then Nuncio to Peru, visited his brother, himself the Apostolic Delegate to the United States, whom Gaetano had not seen in seven years [TIME Magazine. [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,930499,00.html In the Churches] April 30, 1934] .

References

External links

* [http://www.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios-c.htm#Cicognani2 Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church]
* [http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bcico.html Catholic-Hierarchy]