CARDINAL RAMPOLLA

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 147, 18 December 1913, Page 7

CARDINAL RAMPOLLA

DIES SUDDENLY AT ROME POPE OVERWHELMED WITH GRIEF. (By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright.) (Received December 18, 9 a.m.) ROME, 17th December. Cardinal Rampolla is dead. (Received December 18, 10 a.m.) ROME, 17th December. Cardinal Rampolla died suddenly of angina pectoris, though he had been in ill-health for some time. His Holiness the Pope is overwhelmed with grief. The Pope has ordered that the greatest honours be shown to the dead Cardinal. Cardinal Rampolla was hitherto regarded as the Pope's successor. Count Mariano del Tindaro Rampolla was. born on 17th August, 1843, at Polizzi, in the Sicilian diocese of Cefalu. Having completed his studies in the Capranica College at Rome, and having taken holy orders, he studied diplomacy at the College of Ecclesiastical Nobles, and in lb/5 was appointed councillor to the Papal Nunciature at Madrid. Two years later he was recalled to Rome and appointed Secretary of the Propaganda for Eastern Affairs and for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. Consecrated titular Archbishop of Heraclea in 1885, he returned to Madrid as Nuncio, but was shortly afterwards created cardinal and appointed to the Papal Secretaryship of State. Rightly or wrongly (says the Encyclopaadia Britannica), he was held personally responsible for the rapprochement with France and Russia and the opposition to the Powers of the Triple Alliance ; and this attitude had its effect on his career when Leo. XIII. died. Rampolla was undoubtedly the favourite among the Papabili cardinals ; but the veto of Austria was interposed, and the votes of the Sacred College fell to Cardinal Sarto, who on the 4th August, 1903, became Pope as Pius X. Cardinal Rampolla at once resigned his office as Secretary of State, being sftoceadod by Cardinal Merry del Val, and ceased to play any conspicuous part in the Curia.