LATE CARDINAL CERETTI

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 239, 10 May 1933, Page 2

LATE CARDINAL CERETTI

The death has occurred of Cardinal Ceretti, who was appointed Cardinal Bishop at the Consistory at Rome last March, stales a Press Association cable from Rome. '• ie fat'd illness was diabetes. Crd . C etii was a great ecclesiastic minat and traveller. Th? fit - t ; :'pressscn one gaine d of him was of lai< e eyes twinkling be .mcl e ormous spectacles perched upu" a ng nose, and of white teeth which make his smile dazzling. He was of medium height, and when in Australia some years ago had just a suggestion of his years about him. Ac owned the expressive hands of the Latin, but it was his eyes which rivettu attention. They did not twinkle all the time. They could express "ocp earnest aess- and bore into he questioner and seem to read his mind. He had complete command of English and delighted in using its idioms, though of course he had a marked accent. He spoke in other languages, and when he attended the Gaelic section of the Eucharistic Congress in AusumF he uttered several sentences in that tongue which caused wild delight. The Cardinal was bom in Orvicto, Italy, in 1872, and educated at the Pontifical Seminary at the Vatican. Like St. Francis of Assisi he was an Umbrian. After leaving the ■ ‘-cminary he went to the Apollindri University at Rome and afterwards to the University of Sapicnza, and 'took the degrees of P.D., LL.D., and D.Litt. In ISM he was ordained a priest, and for the last two years of the century was professor of classics at the Vatican Seminary. He was not long left in the scholastic life which he loved. The beginning of his brilliant career at the Vatican was his appointment as ah official of the Tribunal Penitentiaria, which dealt chiefly with absolution for grievous sins. He was next attached for Secretary of State, and became Private Chamberlain to the Pope. In 1904 he was sent as secretary of the Apostolic Delegate to Mexico. From Mexico he went to Washington to serve under Archbishop Falcanio, Apostolic Delegate to the American Hierarchy. After eight years at Washington he was created titular Archbishop of Corinth, and went to Australia as Apostolic Delegate. During the war the Pope called Cardinal Ceretti to Rome and made him Secretary to the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. This post gave him an apartment in the Vatican, and it was his. duty .to keep in touch with the. affairs in every country in their relation to the Holy See. Pope Benedict XV. sent the distinguished young prelate .to I Versailles to represent the cause of foreign missions at the Peace Conference of 1919. His success as a diplomat at the Peace Conference led to his appointment to the delicate post of Papal Nuncio at Paris. This was when, after long negotiations, the breach was healed between France and the Vatican and diplomatic relations were resumed. As Nuncio the Cardinal won wide popularity, and after five years the Pope conferred the Red Hat upon him. He was the youngest cardinal in the Sacred Coi'ege, a great honour, for a cardinal is a Prince of the Church.